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With school now well underway and the Delta variant raging, Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations are surging in children and raising alarm. In the United States, there’s been a 240% increase in pediatric cases of the virus since July, the American Academy of Pediatrics said Monday, with reopening without proper masking a likely contributor, according to experts. Vaccines continue to play an integral part of this puzzle, with more children hospitalized and attending the emergency room in states with lower vaccination rates, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “This virus is really going for the people who are not vaccinated,” Dr. Edith Bracho-Sanchez, associate professor of pediatrics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, told CNN, adding: “And among those people are children who don’t qualify for the vaccine and children and teens who qualify but are choosing not to get it.” In the US, where kids as young as 12 have been able to access vaccinations since May, takeup appears to be plateauing around 40%, according to the latest CDC data. Meanwhile, a handful of countries have already begun to inoculate young children, with Cuba becoming the first country in the world to vaccinate toddlers as young as 2 in a bid to get kids safely back into the classrooms.

  • Cuban scientists say their homegrown vaccines are safe and effective, but have so far provided little data to outside observers – although the country says it will seek World Health Organization (WHO) approval for the shots. The government initially planned to focus on vaccinating health care workers, the elderly and the hardest hit areas, but following a spike in infections among children believed to be attributable to Delta, it announced it would also prioritize young kids.
  • In Chile, health authorities on Thursday approved the use of the Chinese vaccine Sinovac for children aged 6 and over. In China, Sinovac was approved for emergency use in children as young as 3 in May, while the CoronaVac vaccine followed in June. In El Salvador, children as young as 6 will soon be able to get vaccinated while in the United Arab Emirates – where Sinopharm is approved for 3-year-olds – the government has made it clear that the vaccination program will be optional.
  • The United Kingdom has now recommended the vaccine for children aged 12-15 following advice from its chief medical officers, placing it in line with the US and many other European countries, which have been inoculating this age group for months. The chief medical officer for England, Professor Chris Whitty, said on Monday that it is hoped this measure will reduce the spread of Covid in schools, although he said vaccinations would not eliminate it and that policies to minimize transmission should be kept in place.
  • The UK’s new guidance has reinvigorated a debate on consent, especially when a parent and child disagree. While parents in the UK generally need to authorize vaccination for children under 16, children can overrule vaccine-hesitant parents if a clinician considers them “competent” to do so.
  • In the US, most children can’t take that power into their hands, with 41 states requiring parental consent for children under 18 to be vaccinated. Nebraska requires parental consent until the age of 19. Five states do have a “mature minor doctrine,” meaning that there is no specific age requirement, with providers able to decide if a minor possesses the maturity to consent themselves. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Sunday that if more people aren’t persuaded to get vaccinated by messaging from health officials and “trusted political messengers,” additional mandates from schools and businesses may be necessary. Last week, US President Joe Biden announced vaccine requirements that include a mandate for businesses with more than 100 employees to require vaccination or regular testing.

YOU ASKED. WE ANSWERED.

Q: When will the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine booster be available for all adults in the US?

A: On Tuesday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) confirmed its vaccine advisers will not be convened to consider the requested amendment to the booster’s emergency use authorization – which means the decision could come any time. 

Also, who are you dining with? If everyone in your party is known to be fully vaccinated, and these are the only people who will be near you, that is a safer scenario than if members of your own party are unvaccinated. Wen said she’d also look at the rate of virus transmission in your community. The lower the rate, the safer it potentially is.

Send your questions here. Are you a health care worker fighting Covid-19? Message us on WhatsApp about the challenges you’re facing: +1 347-322-0415.

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Delta outbreak tests New Zealand’s zero Covid strategy – but lockdown has broad support at home

More than 18 months into the pandemic, some countries, including the United Kingdom, have accepted they may never eliminate the virus – so instead, they’re learning to live with it. New Zealand, by contrast, is one of the few countries still committed to stamping Covid out, known as the zero-Covid strategy, Julia Hollingsworth writes.

This divide was on display last week when New Zealand went into lockdown over a single Delta case, prompting British critics to mock the country’s risk-averse approach. Despite what the critics said, many in New Zealand continue to support the government’s approach to Covid-19.

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ordered the entire nation into lockdown, with the backing of a broad consensus across the political spectrum.

China’s strict 21 day quarantine under question after new outbreak

“You are not a horse. You are not a cow,” the FDA tweeted Saturday about ivermectin. “Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

Kentucky Republican Rand Paul is, by training, a doctor of ophthalmology. Which has to do with eyes. Not infectious disease. That hasn’t stopped the senator from insisting that ivermectin, a drug used in rare instances in humans to treat maladies including intestinal parasites and head lice, is not being studied as a possible treatment for coronavirus patients because of politics, Chris Cillizza writes.  

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TOP TIP

Don’t be afraid to ask questions at your child’s school

The pandemic has heightened the sense of isolation that many men around the world were already feeling. Men are far less likely than women to reach out for help when they are feeling low, according to 2019 analysis from the American Journal of Men’s Health. And stark data from the CDC shows that American men die by suicide at a rate three and a half times higher than for women. (Although women were more likely to attempt suicide, according to that data.)

A study of breakthrough Covid-19 infections finds that vaccines not only reduce the risk of severe disease and hospitalization but can lower the odds of having long-term Covid-19 symptoms too.