Parents have a “responsibility” to get their children vaccinated against Covid-19, the health official said
White House health adviser Anthony Fauci has pushed back on parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids based on the low number of serious cases among children, insisting their arguments don’t make sense.
Fauci took a morre blunt approach with parents hesitant to vaccinate their little ones during a Thursday appearance on NewsNation’s ‘Morning in America.’
After host Adrienne Bankert observed that only zero to four children per 1.1 million in the US required hospitalization due to Covid-19 last week, despite a general surge in cases, Fauci said that the rationale of parents who refer to statistics while declining to immunize their kids “doesn’t make any sense.”
“We vaccinate children for a number of childhood diseases, where the mortality of those diseases is far less than the mortality and the morbidity of Covid-19 on children,” Fauci said.
Due to a rising number of child hospitalizations, it is the “responsibility” of parents to vaccinate their children, Fauci went on. The White House’s top health official acknowledged, however, that children have “less” risk of severe side effects from Covid compared to other age groups.
“It is true that when you compare the hospitalizations and severe illness in young children compared to adults, particularly the elderly, there’s no doubt that the likelihood of getting seriously ill for a child is less than for an adult when you’re dealing with Covid-19,” Fauci said, though added that this does not mean “children don’t get seriously ill.”
Children are “suffering” and “dying,” Fauci noted, adding that it’s “avoidable” if parents simply vaccinate them.
Children aged five and up have been eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccine in the US since November. As cases surge across the county, significantly increased by the Omicron variant, so have child hospitalizations.
During the week of December 22-28, an average of 378 children were admitted to hospitals for Covid each day, a more than 60% jump from the week before, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Some have argued, however, that children remain at low risk of severe side effects and that parents, not officials, should make decisions for their own kids, with multiple lawsuits filed in recent months aiming to block the vaccination of children without parental consent.
