“FIVE FREEDOMS” – OPINION: Former COVID Pandemic advisor to WHO/PAHO – children are at very low (statistical zero) risk of COVID infection
There is no basis for vaccinating children from Covid-19 as indicated by Dr. Anthony Fauci, none (6 months to 11 years old). The children are at very low risk of illness, especially severe illness from Covid, and children do not spread the illness. The most updated data by the American Academy of Pediatrics showed that “Children were 0.00%-0.19% of all COVID-19 deaths, and 10 [US] states reported zero child deaths. In states reporting, 0.00%-0.03% of all child Covid-19 cases resulted in death.”
Ludvigsson published a seminal paper in the New England Journal of Medicine on Covid-19 among children 1 to 16 years of age and their teachers in Sweden.
From the nearly 2 million children that were followed in school in Sweden, it was reported that with no mask mandates, there were zero deaths from Covid and a few instances of transmission and minimal hospitalization.
We argue vehemently that if children are needed from a ‘numbers’ point of view for driving population level ‘herd’ immunity, then they must be allowed to get infected naturally and harmlessly as part of day-to-day living and we do it by opening schools and allowing them to live reasonably normal lives with sensible precautions e.g. enhanced sanitation, hygiene, and disinfectant. Children can and do get infected as they do for usual pathogens they encounter in their daily lives, ‘naturally.’ These pathogens include the common influenza virus and other influenza-like illnesses. There must be no vaccine of our children by these untested potentially very unsafe, ‘not needed’ vaccines. None!
Allow child-to-child daily interaction. Not only will that drive the adaptive immunity but it will give the children a more robust defense against any mutant variants of the virus itself. This will also allow our children’s immune systems to be taxed and tuned up daily, as opposed to the weakening we are subjecting it to with the year-long lockdowns and school closures. We do it while at the same time strongly protecting the elderly who are frail, the elderly in general, and those with comorbid conditions and obese individuals. We must use stringent protections of our nursing homes and other similar congregated settings (including the staff, who remain often the source of the infection). It is better science to use a more ‘focused‘ protection and targeting that is based on age and known risk factors especially, regarding the children.
History teaches us to pause and reflect upon our previous miscues and unforced blunders that had significant consequences. It behooves us to remember the increased incidence of narcolepsy in children in Scandinavian countries following the H1N1 influenza ASO3-adjuvanted vaccine used for the 2009 pandemic (Pandemrix influenza vaccination program). Additionally, the harms caused by the dengue vaccine in children in the Philippines also come to mind that bore a burden on our society of humans. Sanofi Pasteur halted the vaccines in 2017 due to the very dangerous risk of plasma leakage akin to ebola. “It’s a complication called plasma leakage syndrome…he [Halstead] was so worried, he started writing editorials to scientific journals, even warned the Filipino government about the problem…I just say, no, you can’t give a vaccine to somebody – some perfectly normal, healthy person – and now put them at risk for the rest of their lives for plasma leakage syndrome. You can’t do that.” The tainted polio vaccine that sickened and fatally paralyzed children in 1955 in the United States is also worthy of review in this context. The harm that can accrue from a rapid deployment of mass vaccination to the children has not proven to be safe in all the cases. Perhaps this comment is worth noting: “In 1977, for example, a triple vaccination (against diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus) from a defective batch left several children blind, deaf and disabled forever.”Exposing children to an untested Emergency Use medication implies that there is a dire risk to the children without it. There are no data to support such a potential risk. No such data, no evidence whatsoever of this exists, and for the CDC or Dr. Fauci or any medical expert to imply otherwise is duplicitous.
Here is actual research evidence of why children are at very low (statistical zero) risk of COVID infection and severe illness in the first place. They simply do not have the apparatus and bring prior cross-protection to the table that leaves them well primed to walk away from COVID. There is also new evidence of some level of pre-activated antiviral innate immunity residing in the upper respiratory airways (nasopharyngeal region) in children that confers protection. An innate priming to react of sorts, at the level of the innate mucosal compartment. For example,1.) The ACE 2 receptor that the virus uses to gain entry to the host cell, has limited (less) expression and presence in the nasal epithelium in young children (potentially in upper respiratory airways); this explains partly why children are less likely to be infected in the first place, or spread it to other children or adults, or even get severely ill; the apparatus is simply not there as reported by Patel and Bunyavanich.
2) When one is vaccinated or get infected naturally, this drives the formation, tissue distribution, and clonal evolution of B cells which is key to encoding humoral immune memory. There is research evidence by Yang published in Science (May 2021) that blood examined from children retrieved prior to COVID-19 pandemic have memory B cells that can bind to SARS-CoV-2, indicating the potent role of early childhood exposure to common cold coronaviruses (coronaviruses). It underscores the importance of early childhood B cell clonal expansions and cross-reactivity/cross-
protection, in subsequent exposures and responses to novel pathogens e.g. SARS-COV-2. “Consistent with reported serology, pre-pandemic children had class-switched convergent clones to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 with weak cross-reactivity to other coronaviruses….these results highlight the prominence of early childhood B cell clonal expansions and cross-reactivity for future responses to novel pathogens”. These two points may help explain why children are not candidates for the COVID-vaccines and may (are) well immune and can be considered ‘vaccinated’. “Giving them a dangerous vaccine has virtually no benefit but significant downsides (like death)”. 3) We would also draw attention to the research in the Journal of Infection by Galow (April 2021) that examined household transmission rates in children and adults. They reported that there was “no transmission from an index-person < 18 years to a household contact < 18 years (0/7), but 26 transmissions from adult index-cases to household contacts < 18 years (26/71, SAR 0=37)”. These findings are in line with evidence that children are less at risk of developing severe illness courses, and also are far less susceptible and likely to spread and drive SARS-CoV-2 (references 1, 2, 3, 4).
4) Recent research (August 2021) by Loske deepens our understanding even further by showing that pre-activated antiviral innate immunity in the upper airways of children work to control early SARS-CoV-2 infection. The study provides evidence that “the airway immune cells of children are primed for virus sensing, resulting in a stronger early innate antiviral response to SARS-CoV-2 infection than in adults”.
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Expertise and teaching of epidemiology (clinical epidemiology), evidence-based medicine, and research methodology (former A Professor at McMaster University in evidence-based medicine); former COVID Pandemic advisor to WHO-PAHO Washington, DC (2020) and former senior advisor to COVID Pandemic policy in Health and Human Services (HHS) Washington, DC, US government; education: graduate studies at University of Oxford England, University of Toronto Canada, McMaster University Canada, York University Canada; currently independent academic scientist and consultant