Should Children be Given a COVID-19 Vaccine?

We are all eagerly awaiting a COVID-19 vaccine to help fight the pandemic. Vaccines protect individual people from falling ill, but with enough of the population vaccinated, the spread of a disease like COVID-19 can be stopped all together. This is the ideal scenario for a COVID-19 vaccine. However, if the vaccine is only moderately protective, consideration will need to be given to vaccinating children, in order to protect the wider community at large.

Currently, no COVID-19 vaccine has been developed for children. It is most likely that they will be given the same vaccine as adults, but with a different dosage. A child’s immune system can react differently to a vaccine or virus than an adult’s immune system. As a result, we need to conduct further research and clinical trials into how children react to these vaccines. Currently, both the Oxford Vaccine from AstraZeneca and the Pfizer vaccine have plans to include children in later clinical trials. But many more vaccine candidates have no protocol for including children in their studies. To protect our children and our wider communities, we need look further into a COVID-19 vaccine for children. Not only to protect them from the disease itself, but to help put a stop to all of the other negative impacts this pandemic has had on children’s education, health and emotional well-being.