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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWe Are Turning COVID-19 Into a Young Person's Disease
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Sarah Zhang
@sarahzhang
I wrote about this weird period where parents are vaccinated but kids are still waiting...and waiting... possibly until 2022. The pandemic will start looking very different
We Are Turning COVID-19 Into a Young Persons Disease
Even as cases drop among vaccinated Americans, the coronavirus still can spread among unvaccinated peoplewho will be disproportionately children.
theatlantic.com
8:57 AM · Apr 21, 2021
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/04/young-kids-vaccines-covid/618650/
Like many parents, Jason Newland, a pediatrician at Washington University in St. Louis and a dad to three teens ages 19, 17, and 15, now lives in a mixed-vaccination household. His 19-year-old got vaccinated with Johnson & Johnsons shot two weeks ago and the 17-year-old with Pfizers, which is available to teens as young as 16.
The 15-year-old is still waiting for her shot, thougha bit impatiently now. Shes like, Dude, look at me here, Newland told me. Why dont you just tell them Im 16? But because certain pharmaceutical companies set certain age cutoffs for their clinical trial, she alone in her family cant get a COVID-19 shot. Shes the only one who remains vulnerable. Shes the only one who has to quarantine from all her friends if she gets exposed.
In America, adults are racing headlong into a post-vaccination summer while kids are being left in vaccine limbo. Pfizers shot is likely to be authorized for ages 12 to 15 in several weeks time, but younger kids may have to wait until the fall or even early 2022 as clinical trials run their course. This age de-escalation strategy is typical for clinical trials, but it means this confusing period of vaccinated adults and unvaccinated kids will not be over soon. And the pandemic will start to look quite different.
How different? Vaccination is already changing the landscape of COVID-19 risk by age. In the U.S., hospital admissions have fallen dramatically for adults over 70 who were prioritized for vaccines, but they have remained steadyor have even risen slightlyin younger groups that became eligible more recently. This trend is likely to continue as vaccines reach younger and younger adults. Over the summer, the absolute number of cases may drop as mass vaccination dampens transmission while the relative share of cases among the unvaccinated rises, simply because they are the ones still susceptible. The unvaccinated group will, of course, be disproportionately children. By dint of our vaccine order, COVID-19 will start looking like a disease of the young.
*snip*
FirstLight
(13,366 posts)Will it eventually be like chickenpox or polio? yikes. When you think about emerging variants, kids going back to school, etc... it doesnt bode well
Pobeka
(4,999 posts)By and large, who has been partying at bars, partying in Florida, in large crowds with no masks or social distancing?
Young people.
Difference is now when they ultimately interact with an old person, that old person is vaccinated.
Not to say older people haven't ignored common sense either (see the typical Trump rally).
Dr. Shepper
(3,014 posts)To children too young to get the vaccine. From what I read.
Pobeka
(4,999 posts)Dr. Shepper
(3,014 posts)So am in the same conundrum. She cant get vaccinated, although we are.
But I also work at a uni and, yes, the young are living it up like there is no tomorrow.
meadowlander
(4,408 posts)Why are we sweating vaccinating 12 year olds in the US when we've barely started vaccinating at risk populations in the developing world?
I'm not saying there is no risk to kids, but objectively that vaccine is going to do a lot more good in the arm of an 80 year old in India or Argentina than it is in the arm of a five year old in the US.