Photo: Getty Images
When it comes to child COVID-19 vaccinations, it's clear parents are skeptics. Last month prior to the rollout of vaccinations for children between the ages of 5-11, only 27% of parents of young children indicated they were eager to have their children vaccinated against COVID-19.
New polling suggests more of the same today. Here in Florida, it’s safe to say few parents are rushing to be first in line to have their young children vaccinated. According to the state’s weekly update, only 3% of Florida’s near 1.7 million eligible children were vaccinated against COVID-19 in the first week. To put it another way, the state obtained 90,000 vaccine doses last week which was widely panned as being too few in numerous news media outlets. As usual, they were wrong. Only about 50,000 were used.
Few parents of young children in Florida are quick to want to have their children immunized and for good reason. As I recently demonstrated, it’s absurd we’re even having this conversation. A minimum of three times as many children have died of pneumonia during the pandemic as having died from COVID-19.
In fact, as it applies to children almost any malady you can think of has a good or better chance of being more severe for children than COVID-19. The idea of immunizing them for their perceived benefit is absurd by any reasonable measure. The only reason to have a young child immunized unless they’re specifically at risk, is out of fear of infection of you, as the parent, as opposed to them as the child. Which, if the vaccines are to be effective for the parents, wouldn’t be necessary would they? So yes, Florida’s parents are clearly skeptical of these child vaccinations, as the data suggests they should be.