OPINION:
Americans have been well-served by the time-honored dictum “the doctor knows best” — up until recently. Now, the medical professionals entrusted with the task of combating COVID-19 dispense advice busting the boundaries of reason. It is hard to square with common sense an apparent willingness to risk the well-being of children to protect the health of seniors.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is now urging vaccines for children as young as 5 years old. The Pfizer vaccine, approved in October for use in children ages 5 through 11, is “safe and effective,” but it is only authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for “emergency use.” To date, about 30 million doses have been administered to children 5 and above, and trials are underway testing the medication on children six months to 4 years old.
As with adults, recommendations that youths get the jab are hardening into mandates. On Thursday, New Orleans broadened its indoor vaccine requirement to include children ages 5 to 11 starting Jan. 3. The city’s school system announced a vaccine mandate to include children 5 and up, beginning Feb. 1. It follows a similar order from Los Angeles schools set to start next September.
The percentage of U.S. COVID-19 deaths among children ages 5 through 17 is so vanishingly small as to be effectively zero. Accordingly, the rationale for vaccinating children can only be to prevent them from infecting adults 50 and older, who have suffered 93.5% of the deaths. Without accounting for the possible emergence of vaccine side effects over time, it is reasonable to wonder whether the powers that be are gambling with the future health of the younger generation to protect their own.
Such concerns are hardly frivolous. The government’s own Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System has compiled records of coronavirus vaccine reactions in U.S. adults that far surpass cases recorded for fully approved medications over 30 years. They include nearly 600,000 adverse reactions and 7,500 deaths. Heart inflammation episodes such as myocarditis and pericarditis are the most cited conditions.
The White House’s Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci, America’s most visible physician, has led the nation on an endless snipe hunt for a disease-ending medical miracle. Revolutionary vaccines were touted as pestilence silver bullets, but the virus shot back with new variants. A triple dose may soon replace the current double-dose vaccine model as the gold standard of protection, but the promise of a return to everyday life is still nowhere in sight.
It is apparent Drs. Fauci and Walensky are lost in a maddening medical maze. Parents comfortable opting for their own vaccination are nonetheless left in a quandary over whether an experimental jab is suitable for their children. Americans should approach with caution vaccine mandates that could compromise the long-term well-being of their children as a means of protecting the aged population.
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