Covid-19 and childhood vaccination: sluggish start with only 1% of 5–11 year olds vaccinated


Since the start of the children’s vaccination campaign on December 22, only 72,000 of them have received a dose of the anti-Covid vaccine

Open since December, the vaccination of children does not arouse real enthusiasm for its beginnings. Only 1% of 5-11 year olds received their first dose of the vaccine, according to RTL.

Out of 5.7 million eligible 5-11 year olds, 72,000 have received an anti-Covid injection, three weeks after the opening of the vaccination. The vaccination campaign started on December 15 for children with co-morbidities and on December 22 for all others. These sluggish beginnings can be explained by several reasons: Christmas holidays, little health emergency for children, unfavorable parents, or a lack of vaccination slots and suitable centers.

“Not very surprising”

“This is not very surprising since it was gradually put in place just the week before Christmas”, explained Dr. Fabienne Kochert, president of the French Association of Ambulatory Pediatrics, to RTL. Some vaccination centers are just starting to have pediatric lines suitable for vaccination of children. “Logistics are slowly following,” she assures us.

Experts are still divided on the question. If some doctors like the emergency physician Patrick Pelloux advocate for the compulsory vaccination of children to slow the transmission of the virus, especially in schools, others express reservations about the impact that this could have on the epidemic.



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