United States: vaccination of the youngest, the difficulty of convincing parents and adolescents

A 13-year-old girl receives a vaccine injection in Philadelphia on May 18, 2021. REUTERS - HANNAH BEIER

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

The Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine has been available since May 10 for young people aged 12 to 17, while the Moderna vaccine has just passed conclusive tests for this age group.

But the US authorities are struggling to approach these 25 million teenagers.

Publicity

Read more

With our correspondent in Houston,

Thomas harms

In the United States,

to be vaccinated

, a minor needs parental permission.

And parents have mixed opinions.

Those who refuse to do so do so in opposition to vaccines in general or because of doubts about the dangerousness of Covid-19 for young people.

Limited risk

Thus, today, only a third of parents plan to have their child vaccinated as soon as possible.

But a quarter of parents are sure not to vaccinate their child.

And only around 15% will take the plunge if the school asks for it.

The others still prefer to wait.

It must be said that according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only one in six children is at risk of being hospitalized because of Covid-19 and the risk of dying from it is for them ten times lower than in 18-29 year olds.

Hence the parents' doubt.

Partnerships with schools

In San Francisco, Philadelphia and Arizona, minors can be vaccinated even if parents object.

In eight other states, it is on a case-by-case basis depending on the minor's age and maturity.

But to convince them and make vaccination even easier, pharmacies like those of WalMart are launching partnerships with schools to vaccinate in their enclosure.

Newsletter

Receive all international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

  • United States

  • Coronavirus

  • Vaccines

  • Youth

On the same subject

Reportage

United States: New York drops the mask both indoors and outdoors

Covid-19 in the United States: a large-scale study confirms the effectiveness of vaccines

Joe Biden demands report of information on origins of Covid-19 within 90 days