Almost half of five to 11 weren’t signed up for dates

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Nearly half of British Columbia’s 350,000 five to 11-year-olds have not signed up for a COVID-19 vaccine as Omicron continues to rise and school is expected to resume Monday.

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Health Canada approved Pfizer vaccine for children on November 19 of last year and he was available to the Five to 11 party later in the month.

Health officials, including in British Columbia, have encouraged children to get vaccinated to protect themselves and others, especially as cases of Omicron have increased exponentially.

Information released by health officials in British Columbia on Friday showed 140,711 children had received their first dose. Nearly 41,300 other children had registered with the province’s reservation system, about a third of whom have an appointment.

But that leaves 167,000 children who have not yet signed up for the vaccine reservation system, noted BC Health Minister Adrian Dix.

“I encourage each of these parents to register their children,” says Dix.

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Ran Goldman, professor of pediatrics at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Medicine, said it was not easy to tackle parents’ concerns about vaccines for their children.

“Parents have important questions about vaccines and they want to protect their children,” said Goldman, who is also an emergency pediatrician at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. “One of the best tools they have is asking the people they trust the most – their health care providers.”

A recent study carried out in Canada, the United States and Israel published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, of which Goldman was an author, found that about 60% of parents intended to have their children given the vaccine.

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This matches the BC government’s own polls, showing that about 58 percent of parents intended to sign up to immunize their children right away, while 18 percent said they planned to ‘wait and nearly 25 percent said they weren’t sure whether to vaccinate their children for COVID.

The next age group – 12 to 17 years old – were vaccinated at a rate similar to that of the rest of the population. As of January 6, 87% of adolescents had received a first dose and 83% a second dose.

Goldman noted that reluctance to immunize in children has increased over the years. More than 70 independent barriers have been associated with reluctance to immunize, including perceived risks, usefulness and social benefits, as well as access to health services, Goldman noted.

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Studies have also shown that strategies that focus solely on providing the facts about vaccines were ineffective in changing parents’ minds, he said.

“This is why the personal bond with your health care provider and trust is so important,” Goldman said. “It’s a phone call, a Zoom call or seeing your doctor or nurse or going to a pharmacy – and asking the questions. I think a lot of parents are hesitant to ask the questions they have… and if they do, they’ll get the answers.

But Goldman noted that the task of convincing the reluctant 40 percent of parents to roll up their children’s sleeves for a jab isn’t going to be easy.

“I’m worried… We have a lot of work ahead of us,” he said.

Although early studies indicate that Omicron variant may be less severe than the previous Delta variant, its dramatically increased transmissibility causes healthcare providers to fear that it will exceed hospital capacity. The number of hospitalizations has increased in British Columbia, according to the latest data.

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Hospitalizations of those 19 and under represent two percent of the total. In British Columbia, there have been two deaths of children under the age of 10 and none between 10 and 19 of the total deaths of 2,439, according to statistics from the BC Center for Disease Control.

British Columbia health chief Dr Bonnie Henry said there is growing evidence that Omicron affects young people.

And while the new variant appears to affect the upper respiratory tract more than the lungs, there are concerns that it may exacerbate asthma more than other variants, Henry said.

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