Instead of hauling kids off to get a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it becomes available, your child may be better off just getting the disease, some scientists and vaccine experts in the United Kingdom suggest.
“Vaccines have side effects, so if we can control this virus without immunizing children we shouldn’t immunize children as a matter of principle,” Adam Finn, a member of the U.K.’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) said.
Others agree, such as professor Robert Dingwall, a government scientist member of the JCVI, who said children may also be “better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the ‘possible’ risk of a vaccine.”
Children and teenagers are already at a very low risk of COVID or having severe side effects from it, so the JCVI has signaled they would prefer waiting on more global safety data on the vaccine for that age group before promoting it for children.
“The risk/benefit for teenagers must be firmly established,” Dingwall said in a tweet. “The U.K. program has already been modified because the risk/benefit of AZ was not clear for 20 and 30 somethings. Teenagers are at intrinsically low risk from Covid. Vaccines must be exceptionally safe to beat this.”
SOURCE: The Telegraph June 30, 2021