Q&A: Are Covid-19 vaccines on the way for teenagers and children in Ireland? Inoculating children and younger teenagers may be key to living with virus long term
about 6 hours ago Sheila Wayman
Canada became the first country in the world at the start of May to approve the Pfizer vaccine for 12 years and up and was followed by the United States a week later. Photograph: iStock
Children and teenagers have been spared the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, in medical terms at least, even though it has affected them in many other ways.
They are less likely to test positive for the virus and, if they do, are much less likely than adults to become seriously ill. Estimations of just how much they can transmit the virus have fluctuated, especially with new variants, but it is still believed they spread it less than older people.
Green has worked in several North American hospitals, as well as other Irish hospitals, âand there is nowhere more efficient in terms of management and nursing care than Temple Street,â he stresses. âIt is purely an infrastructural issue. We are working in a Victorian hospital and we are trying to offer this high-level care. Those children, if with me or Prof McCormick, will not have their operation within the next 18 months to two years. That is absolutely unacceptable. Every single child on our waiting list requires surgery immediately.
âStart deterioratingâ
âThese are the group for whom it should be happening within four months. The problem with these children is that when we list them for surgery, they immediately start deteriorating and some children we reach a point where they are so sick from their underlying condition and their scoliosis, that surgery is too risky.â