Vaccine in Children Only 48 Percent Effective Weeks After Second Dose

A first grade student, 6-year-old Leonel Campos, receives a COVID-19 vaccine at Arturo Velasquez Institute in Chicago, Ill., on Nov. 12, 2021. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

An Israeli study assessed the effectiveness of BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccination (Pfizer) against the Omicron variant in children 5 to 11 years old using a large health care database and found the vaccine effectiveness (VE) to be 48 percent 7–21 days after dose 2 for symptomatic infection.

People with evidence of prior COVID infection by PCR, antigen, or serology test were excluded.

A U.S. study of a lesser scale found that VE in children declined from 60 percent to 28.9 percent from month 1 to month 2 after the second dose of Pfizer.

Cardiologist Sanjay Verma concluded that “therefore, if this Israeli study were to follow the children beyond 21 days, it is probable the VE would be lower than 48 percent.”

The authors of the study noted that assessment of “vaccine effectiveness against more severe outcomes such as hospitalization were not possible, because they were very rare in the study population.”

“In the US, American Academy of Pediatric data note a hospitalization rate of 0.7 percent in children based upon officially confirmed PCR+ infections. This study and this study previously found that 40 percent of pediatric COVID+ hospitalizations may have been over estimated when differentiating those hospitalized for COVID pneumonia versus those who were hospitalized for other causes but had incidental COVID+ testing during routine surveillance,” Verma noted.

“Therefore, the true hospitalization rate may actually be 0.42 percent of children infected with SARS-CoV2. CDC seroprevalence data report 75 percent of all children have already been infected (4.5 times more than officially confirmed PCR+ results). Perhaps the true SARS-Cov2 hospitalization rate for children then is as low as 0.09 percent. With such low incidence of COVID+ hospitalizations in pediatric population, most trials are not large enough to detect a statistically significant difference in COVID+ hospitalizations (or deaths) between vaccinated and unvaccinated children,” he concluded.

The study notes that 17 percent of the children were obese or overweight, while for the U.S. study, 35 percent of the children were so.

For the Israeli study, 43 percent of the population had received at least three doses of influenza vaccine in the past five years, while in the United States, an estimated 58 percent of children receive an annual flu vaccine, and some schools require the influenza vaccine.

The Israeli study also notes that “many of the children in our study cohort did not receive a second dose within the study follow-up period.”

“mRNA COVID-19 vaccinations do have a known risk of myocarditis and other rare severe adverse reactions. To better contextualize the risk-benefit analysis it would be helpful to know why the children did not receive the second dose,” Verma added.

“Statistics show the rate of COVID-19 associated hospitalization among children aged 5 to 11 is 0.0008 percent,“ writes Dr. Joseph Mercola. ”In real-world terms, that’s so close to zero you basically cannot lower it any further. Yet, despite such reassuring data, children in this age group are urged to get two to three doses of the COVID jab, even though side effects of the injection could harm them for life, or kill them.”