Some experts say children played a significant role this year spreading contagious variants such as alpha and delta.
Vaccinating kids also means reducing silent spread, since most have no or mild symptoms when they contract the virus. When the virus spreads unseen, scientists say, it also goes unabated. And as more people contract it, the odds of new variants rise.
“The fewer people who are infected, the less lottery tickets it has and the better off we’re all going to be in terms of generating the variants,” he said, adding that variants are even more likely to emerge in people with weakened immune systems who harbor the virus for a long time. Getting kids vaccinated could make a real difference going forward, according to estimates by the Covid-19 Scenario Modeling Hub, a collection of university and medical research organizations that consolidates models of how the pandemic may unfold. The hub's latest estimates show that for this November through March 12, 2022, vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds would avert about 430,000 COVID cases in the overall U.S. population if no new variant arose.
“It’s probably a combination of those things,” he said. “But there’s also very good and growing evidence that delta is simply more fit, meaning that it’s able to grow to higher levels faster than other variants that are studied. So when people get delta, they become infectious sooner.”
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Covid-19: Protesters petition Robin Swann over care home Covid rulesResidents' relatives said pandemic restrictions are having a detrimental affect on their loved ones.
Read more »
When Can the COVID-19 Masks Finally Come Off?Amid the turmoil of the past two years — a period that included a deadly pandemic, mass layoffs, an ugly presidential election and an attack on the U.S. Capitol — some of the fiercest political debates in America have been waged over a nearly weightless piece of fabric: the face mask. U.S. officials were slow to embrace face masks as a strategy for slowing the spread of the coronavirus. When they finally did, masks became a potent symbol of the pandemic — a common-sense public health measure tur
Read more »
Dollar shines, euro suffers as COVID fears flare over EuropeThe safe-haven U.S. dollar traded close to a 16-month high to the euro on Monday on growing anxiety over the impact of surging COVID-19 infections in Europe, with Austria reimposing a full lockdown and Germany considering following suit.
Read more »
Virginia's incoming lieutenant governor questions Covid vaccines for those who've had the virus beforeRepublican Virginia Lt. Gov.-elect Winsome Sears on Sunday refused to say whether she'd received the Covid-19 vaccine while repeating a series of falsehoods and misconceptions about the vaccines and infections.
Read more »
U.S. administers 451.5 mln doses of COVID-19 vaccines - CDCThe United States had administered 451,453,834 doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Sunday morning and distributed 566,964,025 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Read more »
Fresh protests, violence against Covid restrictionsA fresh wave of protests broke out in several European cities and in some French overseas territories Sunday, as protesters reacted, sometimes violently, to moves to reintroduced coronavirus restrictions.
Read more »