Opinion – Drauzio Varella: Vaccinate your children against the coronavirus, it is irrational to be afraid

As this virus will remain with us for many years, almost all children who do not receive the vaccine one day will be infected. Most will have mild symptoms or be asymptomatic, but a minority will have the severe form of the disease. What if it’s your daughter or son?

Isn’t that the same reason that we get them vaccinated against measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, and other diseases that have a benign course in most children, but that can cause serious complications?

Covid’s case is comparable: infected children usually evolve with few or no symptoms, but a minority develop life-threatening respiratory failure.

The journal Science brings the latest data tabulated by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, the most complete ever published. In early 2020, children accounted for just 3% of Covid cases in the country. Today, they exceed 25%, a contingent of more than 6 million. About 2 million belonged to the age group from 5 to 11 years old.

At the end of October this year, approximately 100,000 American children were infected each week. Among the tens of thousands hospitalized, a third had no health problems. Despite being healthy, many required admission to the ICU.

In the United States, 700 children have died. Covid is now among the top ten causes of childhood death. There is not a single case of death caused by the vaccine.

Despite the forcefulness of these data, surveys reveal that 42% to 60% of American parents admit to being reluctant or determined not to vaccinate their children.

One of the arguments is that the vaccination has not been tested on enough children. The study that led to the approval of preparations by Pfizer and Moderna (both with messenger RNA technology) for adults involved 40 thousand participants, while the one carried out in the age group from 5 to 11 years old brought together 2,400.

Although with smaller numbers, however, the research with children was statistically very significant: 90.7% efficacy in preventing symptoms of the disease, that is, only one in ten immunized children had any symptoms. There were no deaths.

Another argument against vaccination would be the risk of myocarditis, an inflammatory process that affects the muscle cells of the heart. In the follow-up studies after authorization of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, bringing together children and adults, the risk of myocarditis was five cases in every 1 million people vaccinated. This risk is insignificant compared to the heart problems caused by Covid and, in the case of children, to the multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a serious complication that sets in several organs (including the heart), and can lead to intensive care units and death.

Furthermore, as the dose applied to children is equivalent to one third of that administered to adults, the possibility of myocarditis becomes more unlikely. Studies conducted in Israel and the United States have shown that the incidence of post-vaccination myocarditis in the 12 to 15-year-old age group is lower than in the 16 to 25-year-old population. By analogy, in children aged 11 and under we should expect even lower risks.

Everyone who has or has young children has had the experience of seeing them with recurrent colds, contracted from the moment they are sent to school. Children play together, run and gather at recess, impossible to keep them apart. Then, they bring home the viruses that circulate in the school environment, acting as transmission vectors for the elderly who, in the case of Covid, can acquire a serious form.

These data show that Brazil needs to vaccinate all children over the age of two (future studies may show that it could be earlier). The cognitive losses from keeping them at home for nearly two years are incalculable, especially in the case of the poorest. Every time one of them gets sick, classes are suspended, damaging them all.

For these reasons, reluctant reader, take your children to be vaccinated. Unlike the dangers of disease, vaccines are very safe. Don’t go dying with remorse when you see them sick, be rational.