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Therefore, when officials meet, they will consider a complex set of factors. What is the probability of contracting covid in a child? How much protection does a vaccine provide? What are the possible symptoms and complications from children taking the drug?
Taking all these questions into account, Blumberg says, “it’s clear that the benefits outweigh the risks for this age group.”
In fact, trial data and analysis showed that in virtually any covid scenario, vaccinating children would prevent serious infections and deaths with little risk.
What the studies found
Pfizer’s study, which began in March 2021, enrolled nearly 2,300 children and gave two-thirds a two-dose regimen, while the others received a placebo. Vaccines were given at intervals of 21 days and more importantly at a lower dose than for the elderly, that is, one-third of the vaccine amount.
From the study, three vaccinated children contracted covid, while there were 16 cases among the placebo group – almost 91% effectiveness. Side effects were typical and usually mild, and myocarditis, a rare side effect and possibly the most worrying heart inflammation, did not occur (adult rates are around seven per million, so a very small sample size of 2,300).
Meanwhile, contemporary Monday said He said his studies on children under the age of 12 also showed strong results, with two shots at half the adult dose given 28 days apart. This vaccine will not be up for debate when the FDA convenes, and it will have to go through the same approval path that Pfizer is currently going through before it can be given to children.
In conclusion, these studies have shown that vaccines reduce children’s chances of symptomatic covid infection and hospitalization in line with adult numbers and without significant complications.
Could vaccinating children help curb the pandemic?
However, vaccination is not just about individual benefits, but they are clearly important. At a broader level, computational epidemiologist Maimuna Majumder says vaccinating children could have an impact on the pattern of the pandemic.
“One of the things that makes school-age children, especially young children, unique is not just the number of contacts they have on a given day, but also the heterogeneity of age groups among those contacts,” says Majumder, a faculty member at the university. Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “They interact with their peers at school and in extracurricular activities, but they also interact with older educators and caregivers and their families.”
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