Why It Is Necessary To Vaccinate Kids

Vaccine makers are applying to the FDA for approval to give the COVID-19 vaccines to children. Some people have questioned the need for this since kids seldom get sick, let alone die from COVID-19. But, there is a very good reason to vaccinate them, which is to protect them, as well as the rest of us from the emerging new viral variants that are more infectious and more potent and that I discussed earlier.

Vaccines do two things; 1) they protect the vaccinated from the disease, and 2) they prevent the further spread of the pathogen and disease. A good example of the latter point is Japan and flu vaccines. A number of years ago, Japan mandated that all school kids be vaccinated against the flu. A major result was a sharp drop in flu deaths in the elderly. Kids are walking incubators for respiratory viruses and carry them home for their families to enjoy. Thus, Japan's flu vaccination program meant that fewer kids were catching the flu and carrying it home to infect their parents and grandparents. Hence, flu mortality dropped.

That is why we need to vaccinate kids against CoV-2 even though they seldom get seriously ill from it. Related to that point is the fact that the more CoV-2 spreads, the greater the chance that the virus will mutate into variants that are increasingly infectious, more deadly, and that can evade the immune response to the current vaccines. If that happened, we would be starting all over again. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions around the world would die, countless more would suffer long term consequences from COVID-19, and the disease could very well become more serious in young people. We already are seeing increases in infections and hospitalizations in younger, healthier people from the viral variants that already have arisen in the UK, South Africa, Brazil, and India.

We need to vaccinate kids in order to slow as much as possible transmission of this virus in order to minimize the development of potentially more deadly variants.