Over 7,000 children between ages five and 11 have taken their first dose COVID-19 vaccine, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony on Monday said.
The Minister said that vaccination is the most recommended precaution to avoid becoming infected but he also pointed out other steps that persons should take, especially for children. The minister said non-pharmaceutical methods can also help to avoid infections.
“You can wear a face mask, you can wash your hands and sanitise frequently, and keep some distance from each other because you don’t know what the person next to you might have,” Dr Anthony said.
However, the Minister noted that, “children generally don’t keep their mask on and those sort of things, so if they are not going to be keeping their mask on, staying a little distance from their friends, then the best way to really be protecting them is giving them the vaccines.”
The Minister also gave a breakdown of the children’s vaccine administration. A total of 7,964 first doses of the COVID-19 vaccines for children were given to children between the ages of five to 11 and 3,406 second doses were distributed. Meanwhile, 35,636 first doses were administered to children ages 12-17 and 26,132 second doses were administered.
Further, he said since March 2020, a total of 1,759 children between zero and four were infected, 2,251 children between the ages of five to nine were infected, and 2,870 children between ten and 14 have had COVID-19.
“These are children who were diagnosed with COVID-19 but this is really an underestimate because there might be children who were infected with Sars-co2 but because they didn’t have a formal diagnosis, we don’t know, this is from stats that we have collected,” Dr Anthony said.
