Vaccinating children: The pros and cons.

Vaccinating children against Covid raised a debate, due to generally mild clinical presentation. The decision to vaccinate teenagers was motivated by the global public health need: to decrease transmission to other age groups. Among adolescents, the efficacy (better immunity than in young adults) and safety of vaccines was clearly demonstrated. Among 5-to-12-year-olds, due to lower contamination the collective benefit is less clear, and when the m-RNA vaccines were available for this age group, the Omicron variant was predominant and their effect on non-severe infections and transmission had yet to be determined. Individual benefit is based both on somatic criteria and on the child's schooling and mental health. Children under 5 years of age received a 3 µg dose of vaccine, which is one tenth of the adult dose, resulting in immunogenicity similar to that of 16-to-25-year-olds.