Vaccinating our young children will not accelerate our return to normal living

Last update: Sunday 11/7/21

Throughout the pandemic our de facto goal has been the suppression of the spread of the virus so that our health care facilities would not be overwhelmed. In 2020, we employed various mitigation techniques, mainly face masks and various forms of distancing, e.g., social distancing (6 feet), isolation, quarantine, and lockdowns. 

But from the first months of 2021 until the present, we placed increasing reliance on our highly effective vaccines. Our goal became the achievement of herd immunity by vaccinating a large enough percentage of the population, e.g., 80 or 90 percent, our assumption being that the pandemic would end shortly after herd immunity was achieved. At that point our lives would return to normal as we set restrictive mitigations aside

However, at this point we recognize that herd immunity is not achievable, not in the short run because a substantial percentage of our population refuses to become vaccinated; and not in the long run because the Delta variant can infect a substantial percentage of the vaccinated population. Ergo the pandemic will become endemic. 

Yet another Covid myth

Unfortunately, the Biden administration and the most vocal elements of our medical establishment have been promoting the notion that the vaccination of young children is a gateway to our exit from the pandemic, i.e., our return to normal living. The wisdom of this strategy is questionable:

• Small number of childhood Covid deaths
  Although millions of children have been infected by the virus, the CDC reports that only 66 children from 5 to 11 died during the one year period from 10/3/20 to 10/2/21. This figure is sad, but negligible compared to the 750,00 deaths that Covid inflicted on older Americans. 
  
  A CDC presentation of this data can be found HERE on slide 17. The slide contextualizes the 66 deaths by citing the top ten causes of death of children from ages 5 to 11 in 2019, a pre-pandemic year. 
  
  -- Accidents were the leading cause of death = 969
  -- Homicide was fourth = 207
  -- Heart disease was fifth = 115
  -- Pneumonia/influenza was seventh = 84
  -- Suicide was eighth = 66
  
  In other words, Covid causes a very small increase in childhood mortality. Although vaccinations of young children will greatly reduce the anxieties of their parents, they will probably have negligible impact on the nation's overall Covid death toll in the next twelve months.
  
  
• Young children won't spread COVID
  Young children have not been found to be major spreaders of Covid before vaccines became available. Meanwhile the CDC reports that 98.2 percent of adults 65 and over, our most vulnerable age group, is now fully vaccinated and received booster shots. Reductions in the number of potential family members infected by young children will be even smaller because surveys show that most parents will hesitate to vaccinate their young children right away ... hesitate, but probably do so eventually. 
  
  -- "Covid Shots Are a Go for Children, but Parents Are Reluctant to Consent", Jan Hoffman, NY Times, 10/30/21
  

These considerations imply that the benefits of vaccinating young children will be marginal and will not come quickly. 

Bottom line: Vaccinating the nation's young children is just the final phase of the pandemic before it is transformed into one or more endemics. Our fundamental goal must now become learning how to live with the coronavirus by (a) continuing to increase the vaccinated portion of the population with initial vaccinations (and booster shots as needed); (b) employing mitigation techniques as needed on a limited basis; and most importantly (c) developing a broad consensus as to what levels of hospitalizations and deaths from the continuing presence of the virus are acceptable prices to pay for our return to normal living.

Although our consensus should be informed by science, it cannot be derived from science because achieving a consensus will involve the resolution of conflicts about fundamental values. The peaceful resolution of value conflicts is the stuff of politics and political processes, not science. Ironically, intensive efforts to vaccinate our young children are likely to exacerbate our political divisions, thereby distracting us from the development of this essential consensus at the community, state, and national levels.

______________________

Related notes on this blog:

• "From one pandemic to two overlapping endemics", Last update 11/3/21
  
  
• "Let's stop repeating COVID myths", Last update: 11/1/21
  
  
• "Acceptable costs of living with the virus", Last update: 10/24/21