For all of the far-reaching problems and pains of the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the bits of good news was that it always represented a small and, in almost all cases, manageable risk to children. As of May 26, almost 13.4 million American children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic. Thankfully, the American Academy of Pediatrics reports, hospitalization of children for Covid-19 is exceptionally rare:
- Among states reporting, children ranged from 1.3 percent to 4.6 percent of their total accumulated hospitalizations, and 0.1 percent to 1.5 percent of all their child COVID-19 cases resulted in hospitalization.
- Among states reporting, children were 0 percent to 0.31 percent of all COVID-19 deaths, and three states reported zero child deaths. In states reporting, 0 percent to 0.02 percent of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death.
Nonetheless, there is still one group of Americans who cannot get vaccinated against Covid-19, and that is kids under five — one year and seven months after then-candidate Biden pledged he would “shut down the virus, not the country.” (The U.S. averaged a bit more than 100,000 new cases per day through much of May.)
And now the Biden administration’s Covid-19 Response Coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha, says vaccinations of kids under age five will begin later this month:
[The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee ] meets on June 14th and 15th. We expect FDA to make its decision soon thereafter. Once FDA has authorized — if they have authorized vaccines — we can begin shipping. We expect some of the shipments to start arriving to — in their destination over that long weekend.
Remember, Monday is an important federal holiday, and many doctor’s offices may be closed. And we can’t ship vaccines until FDA has authorized these vaccines. And vaccinations can’t start until CDC has issued its recommendations.
So, we expect that vaccinations will begin in earnest as early as Tuesday, June 21st, and really roll on throughout that week.
There was one other less-than-reassuring exchange in yesterday’s press conference:
Q Doctor, do you believe all schools will and must be open this coming fall?
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: We got to go.
DR. JHA: Yeah, I unfor- —
Q Parents want to know that.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: He has to go.
DR. JHA: I’m sorry.
MS. JEAN-PIERRE: We’re over time. We’re over time.
DR. JHA: Thank you. Sorry.
If Dr. Jha wanted to answer that question, he could have answered that question. The fact that Jha did not answer that question means the answer is not “yes.”
After one to two years of school closures resulted in devastating learning loss and far-reaching emotional problems, lack of social development and growth, and off-the-charts anxiety levels in kids and teenagers, anybody in any position of responsibility should be declaring that they’ll be doing everything possible to keep schools open, come hell or high water. This is not a hard question or a tough call.