On August 9, the Us "Bloomberg Businessweek" published an issue titled "Why Are Children Not Mass-Vaccinated against COVID-19?" by Reilly Griffin and Suzzi Lin. The full text is excerpted below:
One afternoon in May, pediatric infectious disease specialist Michael Joseph Smith strode through Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, to welcome 14-year-old vaccine test subject Cameron O'Hara. Since last winter, Smith has served as a co-principal investigator at a Pfizer Children's Vaccine Trials Office. O'Hara and his mother came to the office after going through a "non-blind" process to get his first dose of the vaccine. As the needle plunged into his arm, he crossed his feet and clasped his mother's hand.
O'Hara aspires to return to the classroom this fall as a freshman. He plans to take a road trip to Adirondack to visit his grandparents to celebrate the second vaccination. O'Hara's parents, both pharmacists, encouraged him to participate in the trial. O'Hara's enthusiasm for vaccinations is higher than many of his friends, some afraid of injections and some with the illusion of eternal youth.
Children's "chronic COVID-19"
Smith worries that laissez-faire attitudes toward teen vaccinates could slow the pediatric immunization movement in the United States and even claim lives. Although COVID-19 has had the biggest impact on older adults, over the past year he has seen infected children develop symptoms of fatigue, brain fog and chest pain – all of which are "chronic COVID-19". His hospital has treated dozens of cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a deadly pediatric disease associated with COVID-19. As the more contagious Delta variant becomes the dominant strain in the United States, his concerns are growing. "A lot of people think it's too fast," he said of the clinical trial process, "and it's not." We have just eliminated bureaucratic red tape. ”
In the United States, more than 4 million children test positive for COVID-19, but the true number of infections may be much higher because children are usually asymptomatic and less likely to be tested. In recent months, as more and more adults have been vaccinated, children sometimes account for more than a third of the weekly confirmed cases. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 44,000 children (from newborns to 17 years old) have been hospitalized since August, and about 350 people have died.
Peter Marks, director of the Food and Drug Administration's Center for The Evaluation and Research of Biological Products, said 350 deaths from COVID-19 may not sound like a lot, but "that's a lot when you think about childhood diseases that vaccines can prevent." Like adults, COVID-19 has done more harm to those from ethnic and minority groups, as well as those with asthma, diabetes and obesity.
Vaccine testing
The U.S. government began vaccinated preschoolers in May, when vaccines produced by Pfizer and its development partner, New BioTech, were authorized for emergency use. The two companies conducted a child vaccine trial shortly after adult vaccination and found that their vaccine was 100 percent effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in 2,260 children aged 12 to 15 years, with subjects producing antibody levels that exceeded those of vaccinated young people and showing no new or worrying side effects. After also seeing 100 percent validity in the 12- to 17-year-old trial group, Modena applied for a license in the United States and has already received approval from European regulators. NovaVac and Johnson & Johnson are currently testing their vaccines on teenagers.
Pfizer has turned to studies of vaccines for younger children, recruiting up to 4,500 children aged 6 months to 11 years old in the United States and Europe to receive lower doses, with preliminary data expected to be released as early as September. At a White House briefing in May, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that by the first quarter of 2022, "we will have enough information about safety and immunogenicity to be able to vaccinate children of any age." An official in the Biden administration told Bloomberg News that the U.S. government has purchased 65 million doses of vaccines tailored for people under the age of 12 to prepare for that moment.
Vaccination encounters resistance
Walking 4.5 miles along Duke's test site, more than 30 teenagers lined up outside Hillside High School in a winding line. At temperatures of 80 degrees Fahrenheit, they sweated profusely. Like O'Hara, they will be the first children in the United States to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Driven by the Delta variant, the epidemic in the United States has continued to rebound. The average weekly case has grown about threefold since late May, and this surge has hit the unvaccinated areas of the South particularly hard.
On that hot May morning, hillside High School had only half of the expected number of children present at the vaccination site, a trend that was playing out across the South. This is a worrying sign for the children's vaccination program, with more than 100,000 public and private schools across the country determining the success or failure of the campaign. A survey released in July by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that parents of teens living in the Midwest or South were the least likely to get their children vaccinated. Meanwhile, 13 percent of parents who are reluctant to vaccinate their children (almost double the percentage of hesitant teens) say they could waver if their schools ask for it. So educators have to decide whether to carry out the task of requiring COVID-19 vaccination, as they often do with measles, polio and other diseases, or to leave it to their parents for political reasons.
Vaccine injunctions, and the controversy surrounding them, have been around for a long time. In a landmark case in 1905, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states had the right to demand vaccination as a necessary measure to protect public health, and that individual freedom was not "absolute." The court also reaffirmed the right of states to exclude unvaccinated children from public schools.
Today, all 50 states and the District of Columbia require children to be vaccinated against chickenpox, measles, polio and pertussis to attend school, and some states allow exemptions for religious or other reasons. The last known case of polio in the United States dates back to 1979, when measles was effectively eradicated in 2000. However, in recent years, with the rise of anti-vaccine sentiment, measles has resurfaced to some extent.
Local positive action
As vaccine skepticism and misinformation spread, the CDC emphasizes the scientifically established principle that school injunctions are key public health tools. For COVID-19, though, the Biden administration left the issue to others to discuss. Sonia Bernstein, senior policy adviser to the government's COVID-19 response team, said: "These are local decisions made by schools and communities. "So far, no state has dared to implement such a policy.
School injunctions may reduce risk, but in the United States, the fiercest opponents are already rallies. State and school boards are reluctant to enforce mandatory orders, in part because of emergency use authorizations. Sharon Maslin, a partner at Morgan Lewis LLP in Washington, D.C., said: "We are in a legal vacuum. The law firm advises employers and administrators on injunctions. Maslin said many people are reluctant to test the waters themselves without full permission.
To quell safety concerns, Cody Meissner, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Tufts University School of Medicine and an FDA consultant, suggested that the FDA should first issue full biological licenses, rather than emergency licensing, to vaccines given to younger children before expanding the rollout. Pfizer may get full approval for vaccines aged 16 and older as soon as this fall, but for younger children, it will take longer to get approval because the Food and Drug Administration requires 6 months of safety data. However, waiting could fundamentally change this promotion.
"If the vaccination campaign is a marathon, we are now 20 miles away," said Jenkins, director of the local public health department in Durham. That's the toughest part of the race, especially with COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rising again. Jenkins plans to make a final sprint four days before the kids return to the classroom: a back-to-school immunization campaign at Durham County Memorial Stadium.
Source: Reference News Network