Editorial: Protecting children from Delta requires an effort from everyone

Student Winston Wallace, 9, raises his hand in class at iPrep Academy on the first day of school in Miami, the United States. Photo / AP

Editorial

EDITORIAL

As people struggle through lockdown, parents of young children have an extra worry on top of everything else.

Children aged over 12 can at least now be vaccinated alongside adults. But what about younger family members?

The positive Covid-19 case of a 5-month-old baby at Middlemore Hospital draws attention to the question of whether children under 12 should be vaccinated.

Young children certainly can be infected, sent to hospital and in very rare cases die from the dominant Delta strain.

In Fiji, a 6-month-old baby and an 11-year-old have been among hundreds of people to die from Delta. There have been cases of young children in hospital on ventilators in the New South Wales outbreak, which has infected hundreds of children aged under 10. The United States is grappling with a surge in cases among children.

In the Auckland outbreak up to Sunday, 141 out of 922 cases have involved infected children aged 9 and younger, or 15.3 per cent of the total, according to the Ministry of Health website. People aged under 30 make up 598, or 64.9 per cent, of the overall number.

Data suggests that the Delta variant is more transmissible among people aged under 40 than the original coronavirus. The younger age group is least likely to have been vaccinated, and are highly social and mobile.

Young kids can struggle with the protective tools adults have been using such as masks, social distancing and good hygiene. They also have family members who can spread it to them.

But health experts say that while children can get infected and transmit the virus, their cases are usually mild.

Australian data shows very few children overall require hospital treatment or die from Covid.

The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that in total, five million US children have been infected and at least 444 have died.

For the entire pandemic here, there have been no deaths of people aged under 50 from Covid in New Zealand.

For all the reassuring numbers this is an emotional matter for individual families. There's a vulnerability in relying on others to not put yourself or loved ones at risk. No one wants their child to get seriously ill. What if they are unlucky enough to fall on the wrong side of fate?

The general approach health authorities have taken is to stress the need for teens and adults to get vaccinated as a collective shield for the young.

Director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said a US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention study showed just how important high vaccination rates were. "This study shows emphatically that US states with high vaccination rates had fewer hospital admissions in younger children than states with lower vaccination rates."

There are more than 900,000 New Zealanders aged under 14, according to Stats NZ.

Vaccine trials in young children have been under way and are expected to be completed this month. Medsafe has yet to receive an application from Pfizer to vary approval of its vaccine for the under-12s.

Reuters reports Pfizer will soon have data covering children aged 5 to 11.

Currently the best defensive wall children can have is for those older than them to get vaccinated. If vaccine safety is established for the under-12s, and regulators and the Government approve the shots, kids will get personal protection.

Ultimately, as with everything in this pandemic, it comes down to human nature and people either doing what's best for them and others - or not.