As children head back to school, leaders in government, education and medicine are anticipating an uptick in COVID-19 spread. The expectations come as about 30 percent of children between the ages of 5 and 11 and 60 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds have completed a two-dose COVID vaccination series, according to the CDC — which also loosened pandemic guidance for schools following the tumultuous shutdowns of 2020.
WAMC's Jim Levulis spoke with Dr. Ross McKinney Jr., who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases and is the chief scientific officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges, about what’s driving the disparity in vaccination rates between children and adults.
McKinney: Well, it's because, in my view, kids don't get as sick from COVID. And parents have looked at said, ‘well, you know, they may feel crummy after getting the vaccine. But you know, they're not getting that sick from COVID.’ And to a degree, that's true, kids do get less symptomatic with COVID. But a few kids get serious disease, they get things like the multiple system inflammatory syndrome in children that could even be fatal. And so there are reactions and some kids get long COVID. And so parents have sort of dismissed the seriousness of COVID. But in fact, it's serious enough that the vaccine is a better option than taking a chance.
Levulis: And there are roughly 42 million children in the US who are unvaccinated against COVID-19. If that number doesn't change significantly, what are the impacts as kids go back to school, some are already back in school, for the fall?
McKinney: Oh, it's going to be a wonderful festival of COVID spreading. I mean, the virus is going to love it. It's like, all those potential vectors to use to spread in the community. And in fact, that is the problem. School has always been a way for viral infections to spread in communities. We see the fall surges for flu, for colds, for viral diarrhea, it's always been an issue and COVID is going to take advantage of it in the same way. And vaccinating will manage to diminish the amount of spread in the community and for families. So they're not only protecting the kid, but they're also protecting the whole family.
Levulis: And in New York, Governor Kathy Hochul says the state will abide by new CDC guidance and no longer preemptively test for COVID-19 in schools. Is that worth the risk of spread?
McKinney: Given that the current version of the virus seems to be somewhat less virulent, we should be moving towards more normalization. And the testing for the schools, you know, if you were just worried about the kids in the school, not testing, it's expensive, you have to keep track of it, it's a lot of hassle for everybody. And I'm not sure that for the kids themselves, you gain that much given the risk. Now, better just vaccinate. You know, strongly encourage vaccination, because that's a better protection than then trying to get everybody by testing. It turns out, it's just a lot of wheel spinning, when you do a lot of testing in the school system. And it's just better to vaccinate once and be done with it. Or vaccinate twice, actually. But yes.
Levulis: And there have been a lot of developments regarding COVID-19 vaccines for children and now, some development on booster shots concerning the latest variants. What advice are you giving to people if they're coming to you saying “what should I do this fall?”
McKinney: Well, if people have not had their primary vaccination, or kids have not had their primary vaccination, do it as soon as possible, because the data is pretty good. Even against Omicron variants and kids. Pfizer just released data for six months to the four-year-olds looking at earlier this year when Omicron was extent, and it's 73% effective. So it really is a useful vaccine to prevent spread. Boosting, if you haven't had the primary I said get vaccinated. Boosting, the kids probably should still be boosted, but it's not as critical. And it may be worth waiting until we get the Omicron variant boosters that are going to be approved in all likelihood just after Labor Day, those will be critical for adults. Adults will want to be getting those boosters because it's a new antigen, and hopefully, it will provide better protection against Omicron, which keeps spreading. But for the kids, probably won't be available until later in the fall. And it's a coin toss, whether it's worth boosting now, or boosting later the CDC has been slow about recommending boosters for young kids, the 6- to 11-year-olds, some slowness in talking about the boosting. So I'm reserved. And what do I tell people? Most people I tell them if they're going back to school, and their last dose was in June, it's probably worth boosting.
Levulis: And earlier in the conversation, we spoke about the disparities between vaccination rates for adults and children as it pertains to COVID-19. I'm wondering if that disparity or similar disparities exist regarding other vaccines. I bring that up because there's been some detection of polio in the greater New York City area.
McKinney: Yeah, because of COVID, kids weren't getting vaccinated. And you know, some parents have gone ahead made the effort, but it hasn't been as easy to do routine public health vaccination, as it was in the past. You know, you didn't want to go to the doctor's office, because COVID was there. And then some people just, there was all this antivax noise. So the result is things like polio, you have a very low rate of polio vaccination in places like Rockland County. And the result is you're actually seeing polio myelitis. And it's been, obviously decades, since we had to worry about polio. Measles is another example. There was a very large outbreak of measles that came out of Disneyland a couple of years ago, and it occurred because there were unvaccinated people and measles is incredibly contagious. Polio is very contagious. And so you want to make sure that all those routine vaccinations keep these diseases quashed and yeah they're coming in from overseas, but they get in. And when they get in, if people are not vaccinated, they get caught. And they were serious diseases that we didn't have to deal with because of vaccination, and now we do if people are not vaccinated.
