COVID-19 and vaccination for age ≤ 15

parentologist
Fri, 28 May 2021 03:00:36 +0000

You’re correct. However, in general, after infancy, young people tend to have better immune responses to immunization than older adults (which some of these healthcare workers surely were). In the setting of very low rates of infection, and considering that there is at minimum a three week wait before administration of the second dose (in which time we have more data), it is very appropriate to get the first dose in 12-15 yr olds now, and make a decision about the second dose later on. Not to mention the fact that we don’t yet have enough data on how much is enough in terms of antibody response. For all we know, that wide response to blocking of binding in the Covid-naive population after the first dose, may still have been enough to prevent infection in a large percentage of the cohort. Makes sense to get that first dose now, in any setting.