I agree with Dr Tim Devine (Letters, 26 January) that vaccinating small children is unnecessary. The almost hysterical push to get them all jabbed is very strange.
In The Echo’s article ‘Children: to vax or not to vax’ (26 January), you quote from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), saying ‘The primary aim of vaccination is to give the body an opportunity to develop strategies to respond quickly and effectively to the COVID virus, in advance of getting infected.’
But a healthy child already has a strategy – it’s called an immune system. As ATAGI also says, ‘most children… are asymptomatic or experience a mild illness.’
The anxiety about children going back to school makes no sense. Does the Government think that children have been isolated in their homes during the summer holidays? No, they’ve been out and about playing with friends and cousins. Do they think their parents haven’t been going to the supermarket to buy food? Or to the gym, to exercise? Do they think that grandparents haven’t been playing with or looking after their grandchildren?
Do they think that teachers have been locked in a sterile room for six weeks and are suddenly going to be more vulnerable in their workplace? Teachers are parents and grandparents too.
As for the twice weekly Rapid Antigen Test (RAT), that’s just pie in the sky – especially for children who have sensory issues. A mouth swab may have been feasible, but a twice-weekly nose prod is beyond a joke, and would cause extreme distress for many children, parents and carers.
RATs for school children is a program that has just been abandoned in the UK. You’d think our Government would take note and learn, but it seems that they make all these decisions on the fly and then don’t have the courage to admit a mistake and change course.
You do know the immune system needs to be primed- do you understand why people including children get sick. Talk to a nurse in emergency of what happens to a child unvaccinated coming to hospital with meningococcal, the difference between a blood test and a spinal fluid sample. Talk to someone who had polio as a child. So tired of hearing about my immune system protects me, find the whole story please.
Hey Rod,
Did you see todays news about study showing the efficacy of the jabs waning to zero protection after 4 months?
Comparing vaccines that work well beyond 4 months after injection versus current covid experimental jabs, is like comparing a goose with a wombat.
My kids are vaccinated for everything except covid, I didn’t trust the sales pitch and the more Govt pushed it, the more I tuned out to the fear hype, and tuned in to scientists with less vested interests. My kids had covid last week, back running, jumping and playing this week.
Yes there will be some kids who are immune compromised who may obtain some benefit from covid jabs, but for the majority they will be (and are going along) just fine. The fear and sensationalism to scare people into jabbing kids with an experimental concoction (that isn’t working as well as it was sold) is nothing short of a disgrace.
Please leave the kids alone.
Please leave parents alone. You have made your decision and no doubt you don’t like people telling you it’s wrong. Extend the same respect to others unless you have some expertise in the game and perhaps trust people to make their own judgements about who has what vested interests.
There is little hype just widespread commentary that the disease (short-term impacts) are indeed mild in most children but there are a range of considerations. You know like no long-term data.
He wants the parents to be fully informed before they consent. They have not been.
Not to mention the probable long term effects.
I want them to be fully informed too – just not by the “experts” posting on these pages. That was my point exactly – ONE of the aspects to be considered is that we don’t know the long term post viral effects of infection.
So parent A decides to avoid injecting their child with an experimental treatment, as many experts around the globe suggest that most healthy kids will be fine without it – their right to make a choice that they believe is best for their child.
Parent B. decides to inject their child with an experimental treatment, for whatever reason they choose – their right to make a choice that they believe is best for their child.
What is wrong besides your assumptions Liz, is using anxiety causing fear to sway uptake of covid injections for kids via horrible health examples that are completely unrelated or relevant to this current crop of injections that do not stop infection, and offer nil protection after a short period.
Trying to pillar parents against each other by suggesting one side is wrong is once again, abhorrent anti-social behaviour.
I have plenty of friends who have taken the time of health workers, to have their children injected.
I may not agree with them, but I respect it was their choice. That’s how diverse communities work FYI.
We must be reading different sources Steve. I’ve seen none of the “anxiety causing fear to sway uptake of covid injections for kids via horrible health examples”.
“ Trying to pillar (do you mean ‘pit’)parents against each other by suggesting one side is wrong is once again, abhorrent anti-social behaviour.” Agree – thought that’s what I said.
You respect their choice? Great – didn’t really come across that way with your exhortation to “leave the kids alone”.
Also the juxtaposition of “avoid injecting their child with an experimental treatment, as many experts around the globe suggest that most healthy kids will be fine without it” with “to inject their child with an experimental treatment, for whatever reason” comes across as a bit judgemental. Just saying.
Thanks for the lesson on diverse communities though.
Do you know how many children drown each year. Can’t send them to school without a life jacket.
Do you know how many children get head injuries every year. Can’t send them to school without a helmet.
Better put a lightning rod on that helmet just in case.
There is a difference between the Polio the Virus, and the condition Poliomyelitis that is caused by many different viruses after arsenic poisoning (see DDT exposure).
Find the whole story please Rod
A boosted immune system is a little less burdensome to carry around than a life jacket or a helmet. There’s also the little difference of the maths. How many students get head injuries or drown at school in a year? How many kids do you anticipate will be infected with Covid 19 in a year of open schools?
Analogies have their limitations and the saying “comparisons are odious” has validity.
It’s not about cases, it’s about deaths.
More kids will die from drowning, head injuries, and it’s shaping up that more will die from jabs if the current trend holds.
What current trend. It’s rare, but some have died from Covid19.
if the government gave the qld developed, examin breath-test a guernsey, it might smooth out the current lumpy testing process…
I hardly think holding up The UK as some sort standard of operation in these Covid times is very smart. Children get sick from Covid and have died from Covid. Let’s have no more of this nonsense that the kids will be just fine without Covid vaccination. Measles, Rubella, Diphtheria vaccinations are routine for children.
After the vaccines are tested over a ten to fifteen year period. This is an experiment with no data, only approved under emergency order.
“No data”, not quite correct. Wishing you no ill, feel free to run the gauntlet of Covid waves and hopefully you survive the next 10-15 years. Please note there have been publicly documented anti Covid vaccination people that have become Covid infected and renounced their anti-vaccine stance just prior to their death.
“Publicly Documented” is code for “my television says”
Perhaps, but there are a few more checks and balances with licensed media outlets than with social media and agenda driven websites.
As all good ABC journalists know, if you say something the govt doesn’t like, they put you in jail.
Hi Ho. So the good parent plays Russian Roulette with their kids?
While deaths among children from covid are rare, as of September 2021, there were 252,000 cases of pediatric Covid 19 reported in the USA, from which 276 deaths (0.04%) occurred in children under the age of 12 years. In the US, vaccination of children against Covid 19 with Pfizer commenced in November 2021 and is conservatively expected to reduce the probability of death due to Covid 19 by 90% – 95%. Hence, fully vaccinating all 276 children would have prevented 248 (90%) deaths from Covid 19.
Are 248 preventable pediatric deaths a small number? In the United States approximately 9 children a year die from school yard shootings. Should we worry? The risk to each child is very small, after all. But preventing 248 pediatric Covid 19 deaths through vaccination would be equivalent to preventing 8.8 Sandy Hook massacres.
So as vaccine related deaths in children keep rising, the numbers swing in the opposite direction. Where the jabs are killing more than would have died otherwise.
Add to that the permanent injury numbers. You will quickly see the point the censored scientists are making.
There is a lot of money in Covid shots so the current narrative will continue regardless.
The results will be suppressed for decades to protect the guilty as always.
Where are you getting this data on vaccinated deaths and injuries Chris? In addition, the problem with preventative measures is that it’s impossible to gauge their success. In fact the more successful they are the more a case can apparently be made against them.
I’d be wary of assumptions about motivations of profit and conspiracies to suppress data – without evidence. That could be classed cognitive bias.
Chris., after 8 million Pfizer doses given to children aged 5–11 years in the US there have been NO vaccine related deaths.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm705152a1.htm