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Child Item

Are you getting your child 5-11 vaccinated? Why/why not?

Cameron326

On the fence about it, but the fact that as recent as a month or two ago the scientific advice, certainly coming out of the UK (on Yougov. no less) was that getting it was not recommended for under 12s unless they had a particularly vulnerable family member/were themselves very vulnerable - is making me think twice. If the case for vaccines is of the variety “parents need to sit down with their young (5 year old) child and have a discussion about it” (to quote a doctor in a recent Irish Times article) - well that just seems like they simply don’t know, in which case I look to the stats (such as they are available and as unclear/ill defined as they are) and the case for vaccination of healthy 5, 6, 7 year old, certainly in terms of pure known and speculative unknown risk/benefit to the child, seems unconvincing to say the least.

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Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118493362#Comment_118493362

Ok I accept that but given the minute chance of either of my kids getting very sick from covid and given that getting the vaccine may not help reduce transmission then why would I get them vaccinated? Me and Mrs are both triple jabbed so I am far from an antivaxxer but given the shortage in vaccinations worldwide why are we giving (potentially) pointless vaccines to children?

I am looking for a reason to do it tbh but I am not getting them vaccinated for no reason.

Backstreet Moyes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118493362#Comment_118493362

How many kids in the 5 to 11 age bracket have died from Covid in Ireland?

That's before taking into account that Delta was far more dangerous than Omicron, so the risk is far more less now.

The only possible reason to vaccinate kids was for reducing transmission which Omicron has made pointless.

You want kids jabbed but admit you haven't seen any reliable data that they reduce transmission.

The cost of this pointless effort would be far better used improving the health service which would make a much bigger difference.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118493517#Comment_118493517

Shortage of vaccinations isn't really a reason, we'll go through our supply regardless (and some will expire before they get used), there are a multitude of reasons why vaccine uptake isn't great in some countries, a lot of it is down to the ability to administrate the vaccine (e.g. South Africa have started rejecting vaccines due to logistical problems in getting them to people) as well as people not being that interested (as there are greater threats to solve instead, it's not like we can get food and water to areas that need it either just because we have an abundance), if you want to make a difference there, donate to COVAX as that is also helping on the administration side.

For children, it's essentially turning a very low risk into a very very low risk, I think it's down to each parent to decide if it's worth it or not, my rationale is that they'll probably meet the virus anyway and if they do, they'll have antibodies and an immune system ready to fight it and avoid being sick, missing school, spreading it to others etc. to varying degrees.

Chips Lovell

There's been a few studies as far as I know. The Danish one done just after Christmas found that while Omicron is definitely more transmissible among the vaccinated, it's still less transmissible than it is among the unvaccinated.

Our results show that the Omicron VOC is generally 2.7-3.7 times more infectious than the Delta VOC among vaccinated individuals (Table 3). This observation is in line with data from (18), which estimated that 19% of Omicron VOC primary cases in households in the UK resulted in at least one other infection within the household, compared to only 8.3% of those associated with the Delta VOC. Furthermore, we show that fully vaccinated and booster-vaccinated individuals are generally less susceptible to infection compared to unvaccinated individuals (Table 2). We also show that booster-vaccinated individuals generally had a reduced transmissibility (OR: 0.72, CI: 0.56-0.92), and that unvaccinated individuals had a higher transmissibility (OR: 1.41, CI: 1.27-1.57), compared to fully vaccinated individuals.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118492863#Comment_118492863

Do you seriously think 5 to 11 year olds are going to be coming home crying because they didn't get a needle that their friends got.

Who said anything about kids crying?

Most kids are scared of needles and you think some kids will be upset because their friends got a needle and they didn't.

Who said anything about kids being upset? They do ask questions though

This is not a vaccine where a nurse comes into the school, parents need to bring the child outside of school so how are other kids going to know who got a vaccine.

Kids do talk to each other about what happens outside school

These are young kids, I don't think they will have any idea what needle they got and I don't think kids this age are going to be having conversations about Covid in school.

You are seriously underestimating both the curiosity and intelligence of kids

A case might have been made for kids to get it to reduce transmission, but that is now pointless, so the only reason to jab kids now is to make people like you feel safer.

Thank you for telling me how I feel oh insightful one. There is also a reason cases are peaking with nowhere near 80% of the population infected and for a large portion be asymptomatic / extremely mild. Care to hazard a guess why?

It is a massive waste of money and the uptake will be very low.

In fact the majority of kids will not get the vaccine so to use your ridiculous theory, it is much more likely kids will be asking parents why did they need to get a needle that hurt them when their friends didn't have to get it.

My now 7 your old understands the rationale for vaccination and did so a year ago. You underestimate both the intelligence and resilience of kids

tfeldi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118493743#Comment_118493743

Fully agree with raind.

My 7 year old was proudly telling in school when she got the first vaccine and she knows who also been vaccinated in her class. She is also looking forward to the next. Her arm hurt for a day but she didn't mind. She also knows why we are pausing activities outside school when cases are really high, and that we proceeding with them again when cases are better.

Her 4 year old brother knows that his sister got something that he didn't and that it was a vaccine, but is confusing flu with covid vaccine.

In short, a majority of kids in the 5 - 11 year range know what a vaccine is and talk about it. We obviously all hope that there will be a time again when kids knew a bit less about these things and can be 'normal' kids again. But kids surprisingly adjust to all kinds of situations.

Cluedo Monopoly

Curious, does anyone here give their young children the annual flu vaccine?

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118493743#Comment_118493743

My son actually asked me yesterday when he was getting the vaccine as all his friends are coming in with stickers

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118494251#Comment_118494251

Yes.

Marty Bird

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118494154#Comment_118494154

I find that strange children that age talking about medicine and who has it and who hasn’t, it, and looking forward to it I mean WTF have we become as a society.

I remember another parent saying that when Tony came on that TV his 5 year old would say Tony is the boss of the house. What a world.

Sesame

Not get my children vaccinated for now anyway.

I am vaccinated and boosted. Reading that they are now talking about a 4th vaccination, I don't wish my kids to have 2/3/4 vaccinations like adults. When does it stop? I can't imagine bring my children in every couple of months for another shot. My non-scientific instinct to that is that it's not right.

I have read up WHO advice and other legit sources and made the decision not to. I also believe we are in the cusp of the end of the pandemic stage so see no reason to risk a vaccine for children where the long term affects are unknown. The risk/reward for children is reversed.

fits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118494251#Comment_118494251

Yes. We all get it in our household.

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118495160#Comment_118495160

They do 'news' in the morning and many in my kids class have announced that they were vaccinated as part of their news as obviously their parents made a bit of a big deal about it (as you do). It is not something a 7 year old debates the pros and cons of during their lunch break if that is what you think was meant.

Marty Bird

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118495459#Comment_118495459

I just think making a big deal and telling others your medical status in front of the class is disturbing that kind of talk should be discouraged within the class.

Children who take the medicine that’s their own business and that type of info should be kept private.

Pawwed Rig

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118495848#Comment_118495848

Kids don't have any sense of privacy. Nor should they be expected to. That is why you don't say anything in front of kids that you wouldn't like to see repeated.

harrylittle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118495848#Comment_118495848

yes its called peer pressure or mild bullying

JPup

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118494251#Comment_118494251

Yes, the flu shot is free and administered with a spray up the nose. No needle required. In and out in a couple of mins and completely painless. My child has never had side effects but I'm sure they are possible. The flu is quite dangerous for children. Considerably more so than Covid (based on the probability of hospitalisation after contracting the disease).

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118497590#Comment_118497590

Very good. I believe the flu vaccine only became available to children last year or 2020 - am I right?

I got the real flu once in my 20s and honestly it was horrific. I was never as sick in my life. Awful.

seamus

Any insights on queueing times for kids' vaccinations at the moment? Everyone we've spoken to reported that last week people were rocking up with all of their kids to vaccine appointments, and the vaccinators were doing them all. Fair enough, but this was backing up the whole system. Everyone reported they were queueing for 90 mins+.

Same deal this week or have they clamped down on it? I'm thinking the child is more likely to get covid standing in a queue for two hours, so would rather push it back by a week till there are no queues.

rovers_runner

Thankfully the expected campaign to vaccinate healthy children with something they don't need is not going to materialize.

The Govt and HSE know the vast majority of parents have taken the right decision not to proceed with this, I feel sorry for any parent who was duped into getting their healthy child vaccinated.

I say this as a boosted adult by the way.

Ashbourne hoop

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118494251#Comment_118494251

Over the last two years both my kids have had the flu vaccine.

Eldest (18) has got her covid booster and the youngest (11) has had his first dose. I was on the fence with both of them, but they decided they wanted to get vaccinated themselves, as did their mother.

rex_turner

The HSE website explicitly states that if you have more than one child to be vaccinated, then you can bring them all to one appointment. I live 40 minutes (in light traffic, longer if busier) from the vaccination centre and have 3 children in the age range. I got their appointments for 3 different days - it would have been highly impractical for me to bring them separately - 6 round trips for 2 doses.

Having said that the vaccination centre yesterday was busy but our wait was minimal.

To the person who thinks that children should keep their "medical information" to themselves, while I was waiting to collect my children from school yesterday one of the teachers told me that my child told her that they were the surprise in the family as their parents weren't expecting them to be born - so my child can't even keep our (lack of) family planning to themselves never mind their own "medical information". 😜

Sesame

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118498837#Comment_118498837

I agree and thought it been strange the way there's been very little publicity since the first day you could register children for the vaccine. There's been nothing since and the actual numbers of children who have been vaccinated as information is not been released in the same form as it has for adults. We had breakdowns of numbers vaccinated for each age group up to now, why are they not doing the same for the 5 to 11 group?

It does seem like there not a genuine backing in government/HSE for this cohort. Yesterday's Irish Times has a full page ad on getting the booster. But nothing about our children where it appears less than 10% have been vaccinated. (I think I read 46,000 out of 480,000 eligible, although that could have increased since but info hard to find). Its odd and I'm hoping that the need for a children's cert is not coming down the line, where the unvaccinated children cannot travel/go to restaurants/etc.

Apogee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118499684#Comment_118499684

The weekly breakdowns of vaccines administered for all age groups, including 5-11 in grey, are on the COVID hub->https://covid19ireland-geohive.hub.arcgis.com/pages/vaccinations

seamus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118499321#Comment_118499321

Thanks

donaghs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118491659#Comment_118491659

it took about a year for the pandremix swine flu narcolepsy link in teens to emerge. First in Nordic countries in 2010.

you can see people on an old medical boards.ie thread here sneering at anyone who questioned the safety, testing procedures, or necessity of vaccinating people against swine flu:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2055611526/swine-flu-vaccination-general-swine-flu-chat-thread

Like economic boom and bust cycles, these are lessons which need to be continually re-learned.

There must be a very very serious case for speeding up approval and deployment of new medicines. I don’t think covid in kids meets that requirement.

I’m fully vaxxed myself. Wouldn’t rule it out for the kids, but it needs more time to shake out.

MilkyToast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118501943#Comment_118501943

That thread is depressing.

"LOL **** antivaxxer morons get jabbed" Repeat for 20+ pages.

10 years later>Narcolepsy link.

Cue Tumbleweed.

spaceHopper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118494251#Comment_118494251

This year and last year, I think it's the first time you could get it for kids.

spaceHopper

Still very much on the fence about this leaning towards doing it. One thing to keep in mind is that soon enough they will wind down the vaccine centers if you leave it to long you may end up having a hard time getting it close to home.

Cluedo Monopoly

Just over 16% of children aged 5 to 11 vaccinated (rte.ie)

Just over 16% of children aged 5 to 11 vaccinated so far

Latest figures show that over 78,000 children aged five to 11 have been given a Covid-19 vaccination so far.

There are an estimated 480,000 children in this age group eligible for immunisation and the uptake to date represents just over 16% of children eligible.

The key metric is how many children have been registered. I don't see that in the article.