“Do not rush to vaccinate children as long as the full picture is not clear. Coronavirus disease does not endanger children, and the first rule in medicine is ‘first, do no harm’. The full picture is expected in many months, and possibly years…”
— from a letter signed by 93 Israeli physicians, sent to “the chiefs of the Ministry of Health, to our fellow doctors around the country, and to the entire public” in April, 2021.
The Daily Post is sharing a press release, this morning, from our local public health district, San Juan Basin Public Health. The press release concerns the availability of the Pfizer vaccine for American children age 5-11, and in particular, a ‘question and answer’ session at the Ruby Sisson Memorial Library this Friday, November 19 from 4:30-5:30pm.
The press release quotes SJBPH Executive Director, Liane Jollon: “Our goal is to help parents make an informed decision about vaccination for their child.”
The Daily Post hopes parents will make just such an informed decision. Even though the information is difficult to verify.
What are the facts, around the administration of the Pfizer vaccine in children ages 5-11? We don’t have too many, with this next phase of the public health experiment just now getting underway.
One particular fact: According to State of Colorado data, no child age 0-14 has died of COVID-19. Zero deaths since January 2020.
Then we have a mess of conflicting data from various sources, some of which consists, not of ‘facts’ per se but rather, interpretations and theories based on statistical numbers. We also have a complete absence of facts around certain important issues.
For example. It is possible that giving a child a Pfizer vaccine will reduce the child’s chances of spreading the virus among classmates and family members. But it’s also possible that, as some studies have found, the viral load in vaccinated and unvaccinated persons is similar, and that a child can spread the disease no matter if they are vaccinated or not. If a child believes they are ‘safe’ — because they have been vaccinated — will the child then be more prone to engage in unsafe behaviors? We have no idea.
Another particular fact: The information keeps changing.
Back in April, a group of 93 physicians sent a letter to the Israeli Ministry of Health, recommending that children not be subjected to Pfizer vaccines, for a number of reasons. As some Daily Post readers may know, Israel is one of the most thoroughly-vaccinated nations on the planet, with 78% of the population over 12 years old ‘fully vaccinated’ as of late August.
The physicians wrote, in part:
“Pediatrics in Israel is one of the best in the world, and pediatric intensive care, above all. It is extremely rare for a child to die of a viral disease, and this can happen, unfortunately, as a result of various types of viruses. We do not think it is right to manage private life and public health policy out of an ongoing fear of a viral illness that is very rarely liable to harm our children’s lives…”
“In view of the fact that the vaccination of the vulnerable population reduces hospitalizations and mortality from COVID — we believe that the negative effects of the virus will be much smaller when the majority of the at-risk population is vaccinated, as begins to appear to be the case in the country, and this without the need to vaccinate children…”
“We believe that our children should be allowed to return to the routine of their blessed lives immediately, and should not be vaccinated against COVID-19. Asymptomatic children’s tests, which have no clinical significance but cause widespread indirect damage, and the mass isolation cycles in education frameworks, should be stopped immediately. It should be emphasized to the public that even vaccinated people can be infected and infect, and that the same rules of conduct apply to everyone without connection to vaccination status. We must stop pointing the finger of blame at the unvaccinated, and we must stop violating the rights of the individual. We must immediately stop all forms of exclusion and separation between people in the public sphere…”
Pretty radical commentary, when you compare it to the public health advice being dispensed in the U.S. regarding child vaccinations, which paints an almost exclusively rosy picture of benefits.
As of late August, half of Israel’s seriously ill, hospitalized patients were people who had been were fully vaccinated at least five months earlier. Most of them were over 60 years old and had comorbidities. The seriously ill patients who are unvaccinated were mostly young, healthy people whose condition deteriorated quickly.
This week, the Israeli Ministry of Health approved the Pfizer vaccine to be used in children age 5-11.
That is another particular fact.
What the outcome of that decision will be, we will not know for many, many months.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.