Penna Dexter

The COVID-19 vaccine was approved for children 5 and older on an emergency basis at the end of October. Immediately, talk of mandates began. Several experts on an FDA advisory panel warned against mandating the shot for kids. But some bureaucrats have already succumbed to what National Review’s Rich Lowry calls “the irresistible urge of officialdom in blue areas toward pandemic coercion.” Once the FDA fully approves the vaccine for children, mandates in California, Louisiana, and Washington D.C. will take effect and others are in the works. This is crazy. First, there’s no evidence the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines prevent infection and transmission of the Omicron variant, which represents over 95% of cases. In a piece for the Wall Street Journal, Nobel prize winner for Physiology, Dr. Luc Montagnier cites research from Denmark and Canada showing “vaccinated people have higher rates of Omicron infection than unvaccinated people.” Secondly, Covid is mild in children. The Omicron variant is even more so. Anecdotally, I tested positive after having all my kids and grandkids over for Christmas. Merry Christmas — I gave it to a few of them. The two little ones who tested positive had low fevers or coughs for a day or so. Plus, as Rich Lowry points out, “Covid vaccinations aren’t going to eliminate Covid the way, say Jonas Salk’s miraculous innovation eliminated polio.” In fact, he writes, “it’s not even clear that childhood vaccinations will do much to dent the spread.” Unvaccinated kids are unlikely to get seriously ill from Covid. But the vaccine poses a risk to boys, even younger boys aged 5 to 11, of a heart condition called myocarditis. In Los Angeles, the school board attempted to mandate that students 12 and older be vaccinated or relegated to remote learning, causing what Mr. Lowry calls “an almost-guaranteed harm...kneecapping their education.” Parents can weigh these considerations and decide whether getting their teens, and now their little kids, vaccinated is worth the risk.