Unlike what happened with the vaccination against Covid of adults, for which a global consensus of need and urgency was quickly consolidated, the case of childhood vaccination continues to divide the opinion of health authorities in several countries. Sweden, Norway and Mexico, for example, chose not to recommend the vaccination of children from the age of five against COVID 16.
The Mexican government cites as a reason the WHO’s own recommendations to broadly reach higher risk groups such as the elderly before considering vaccinating children. Sweden explains that, when assessing consequences, it understood that the risks of the disease for children are too low to justify exposing them to potential adverse effects of vaccines.
This does not mean that these countries are not offering the doses to those who want them. The vaccine is offered free of charge in Norway to children from five years of age by the National Institute of Public Health (FHI, in the local acronym). According to the agency, 90% of adults have already received two doses in the country. All vaccination in Norway is voluntary. In an information pamphlet, the FHI says that “having COVID-16 provides as good protection against reinfection as the vaccine.” He also informs that in the last month, 42% of hospitalized children younger than 18 years were infants under one year of age (39 of 84 hospitalized), for whom no vaccine was approved. Hospitalization is usually short-term, may be due to the extra care dedicated to this age group and is lower than that observed in the fall of 2021 in the country, assures the institute.
The Public Health Agency of Sweden reports that 84% of the Swedish population above 39 years if vaccinated with two doses, 55% over 18 years took the third. In the case of childhood vaccination, the country only campaigns for the immunization of children who belong to risk groups.
The United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) maintains statistics on hospitalizations and deaths by covid in children. In all the years studied, more children are hospitalized or died from flu than from Covid in the two years of the pandemic. In conjunction with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the institution approved a third dose for young people aged and older in January.
US Overkill?
US authorities are putting such an emphasis on vaccines in teenagers that New York State has produced a guideline restricting participation in extracurricular activities only for students from who have taken the third dose.
For David Zweig, columnist for the magazine The Atlantic, which heard many experts on the subject, the American stance is an anomaly in the global scenario when it comes to vaccination policies for children, since many developed countries have adopted a more cautious stance. “If we look closely at the primary data from the CDC and Pfizer, we will discover a history of misleading health agency communications and short-sighted policy, sometimes at odds with science,” says the author. In the UK, for example, the third dose for adults is only given to young people with serious comorbidities. In Ireland, minors under 16 are not allowed to take the booster dose. In addition to Sweden, Denmark, Japan and Spain have approved booster doses for adults only.
