As I see itSingapore is right: don’t browbeat parents into vaccinating their kids against Covid. Persuade them

Immunising children is the next stage of the coronavirus fight for Asia-Pacific societies with high vaccination rates like Japan and Australia

While the data suggests such jabs are safe, and Omicron has raised the stakes, ultimately it should be for parents to weigh the risks and benefits

2-MIN READ2-MIN

A boy gets a lollipop from a medical worker after receiving a dose of Covid-19 vaccine in Tianjin, China. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 9:30am, 14 Jan 2022Updated: 11:00am, 14 Jan 2022

Asia-Pacific societies that have fared well in vaccinating their populations against Covid-19 – including Australia, Japan and Singapore – are now moving on to the next phase: immunising children.

In Australia, children aged five to 11 became eligible for Pfizer-BioNTech “Cominarty” jabs on Monday.

In Japan, where 79 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated, the inoculation of this same age group is likely to begin in February.

Although I am not a parent, I have been closely monitoring discussions of the topic as friends in Singapore have begun sending their school-age children for their first Cominarty jabs. Naturally, there is some anxiety.

A friend who eagerly got herself inoculated as soon as vaccines became available in 2020 admitted she was more hesitant in deciding whether her seven-year-old daughter should take the jab.

Like other parents, she too had questions about Cominarty’s use of the relatively new messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology, and whether it would have long-term effects on her child’s development.

Children pass a Covid-19 vaccination clinic at Choi Hung Road Badminton Centre in Hong Kong. Photo: May Tse