Like most parents, we won’t be giving our kids the COVID vaccine right away

An overwhelming and increasing majority of parents are choosing not to vaccinate their kids from COVID. While my wife and I were at the front of the line to get ourselves vaccinated, we’re in good company with the more than 70% of parents who are in no rush to get shots for their 5 to 11-year-olds now that vaccines are approved for emergency use for this age group. The most recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows the number of families who say they’ll wait and see, definitely won’t or will only vaccinate if required to has been trending upwards over September and August.

Kaiser finds that:

Parents’ main concerns when it comes to vaccinating their younger children ages 5-11 have to do with potential unknown long-term effects and serious side effects of the vaccine, including two-thirds who are concerned the vaccine may affect their child’s future fertility.

My close reading of the studies suggests that the risk of fertility issues in girls and possible heart conditions (there have been reports of myocarditis, especially in boys) due to the vaccines are rare. But then the risks to our kids from COVID are also extremely rare. As the New York Times wrote:

For children without a serious medical condition, the danger of severe Covid is so low as to be difficult to quantify. For children with such a condition, the danger is higher but still lower than many people believe. The risk of long Covid among children — a source of fear among many parents — also appears to be very low.

[Data from King County Washington show] the risks for unvaccinated children look similar to the risks for vaccinated people in their 50s. Nationwide statistics from England show an even larger age skew. Children under 12 appear to be at less risk than vaccinated people in their 40s if not 30s.

It’s these sorts of facts that prompted the satirical website the Babylon Bee to run a hilarious piece under the headline “Pfizer Assures That Vaccine Is Almost As Safe For Kids As COVID”.

It’s also why numerous agencies around the world are not recommending vaccinating all children. For example, the UK vaccine agency (JCVI) has recommended against vaccinating all kids 15 and under. Children in Sweden between the ages of 12 and 15, the BBC reports, are only eligible for a vaccine if they have lung disease, severe asthma or another high-risk medical condition.

Once more studies are run and the normal (and not emergency use) approval processes are completed, we might go ahead and vaccinate our little ones. But until then, there’s no obvious clear net benefit to do so. The Babylon Bee again summed it up nicely with the recent headline: “Pfizer Claims Vaccine Will Reduce Average Daily Child COVID Deaths From Almost Zero To Almost Zero”.

Or as Matt Welch concluded:

So the "benefits" of vaccinating kids is that kids will be vaccinated; otherwise nothing changes…https://t.co/9prs5LyhDC
— reason (@reason) October 21, 2021