This suggests that children may be spared some of the most debilitating problems seen in adult long Covid. While the recent Clock study found that up to 14% of children who caught Covid may still have symptoms 15 weeks later, levels of fatigue appear similar to those in children who have not caught the virus. So far, UK children have not been admitted to hospital for Covid in large numbers and may not be at great risk of long Covid.
According to the UK medicines regulator, the rate of myocarditis after Covid vaccination is only six per million shots of Pfizer/BioNTech. How reliable the data is and whether similar numbers could be seen in the UK if healthy 12 to 15-year-olds are vaccinated are unclear: vaccine reactions are recorded differently in the US and shots are given at longer time intervals in the UK. At current US infection rates, the risk of a healthy adolescent being taken to hospital with Covid in the next 120 days is about 44 per million, they said. The equivalent rates for girls were 13.4 and 13 cases per million, respectively. They estimate the rate of myocarditis after two shots of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to be 162.2 cases per million for healthy boys aged 12 to 15 and 94 cases per million for healthy boys aged 16 to 17. In the latest study, which has yet to be peer reviewed, Dr Tracy Høeg at the University of California and colleagues analysed adverse reactions to Covid vaccines in US children aged 12 to 17 during the first six months of 2021. Children aged 12 to 15 who are particularly vulnerable to Covid, or who live with an at-risk person, are eligible for the shots. The JCVI did not recommend vaccinating healthy 12 to 15-year-olds, but referred the matter to the UK’s chief medical officers who are expected to make a final decision next week. Saul Faust, professor of paediatric immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Southampton, who was not involved in the work, said the findings appeared to justify the cautious approach taken on teenage vaccines by the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation.
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