Children vaccinated against Covid are contagious for just as long as their unvaccinated peers, a new study from California shows.
Whether or not students received their bivalent Covid booster vaccination had no impact on how long they lost parts of the virus after a positive test.
According to the results from April to September 2022, both groups of children aged seven to eighteen were contagious for an average of three days.
The study casts further doubt on the importance of giving Covid booster vaccinations to children. Until earlier this year, several states, including California and Illinois, required vaccinations in schools.
Experts at Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles, who conducted the study: “Back-to-school policies may not need to discriminate based on vaccination or booster status.”
Most importantly, the team did not test the vaccines’ potential to prevent infections at all, said lead author Dr. Neeraj Sood.
Vaccinated children were contagious for three days, the same length of time as unvaccinated children
Booster dose uptake among the youngest Americans started low and remains low, in part because parents see no benefit to giving their children the shot when they are less likely to get seriously ill
The study also took place before Pfizer’s original bivalent booster was approved.
This vaccine provided better protection against the Omicron subvariants then circulating.
The youngest children in the study likely did not receive a booster vaccination, but rather the standard two-dose vaccination.
The level of immunity and protection has evolved and been influenced by the different combinations of vaccines and virus variants.
The report was published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
The 76 children involved in the study were from the Los Angeles area and ranged in age from seven to 18 years old.
The aim was to measure the impact of the virus on children’s cells to better understand how it behaves and how long it remains infectious.
The researchers examined the level of virus shedding, that is, the number of virus particles that a child expels through coughing, sneezing or talking and which then spread into the environment.
Each child tested positive for the Covid-19 Omicron variant. Of the 76 children, including 41 seven- to twelve-year-olds, 52 were vaccinated.
Vaccinated children were infectious for three days, the same time as unvaccinated children.
The researchers did not say whether they were surprised by their findings. However, what they found was similar to a study of adults with the Omicron variant, which also found no relationship between how long a person had been infected and their vaccination status.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that all children, including infants six months and older, receive a bivalent booster shot that contains components of both the original virus strain and the Omicron variant.
Acceptance, however, remained low. A July 2023 study published in the journal Annals of Medicine reported that only 39 percent of children ages five to 11 and 55 percent of teenagers received a booster dose.
Bivalent booster vaccinations have been shown to be very effective in preventing cases severe enough to require a child to go to the hospital or emergency room. However, it is not clear to what extent the injections can prevent infection at all.
Covid vaccines are very effective in preventing serious disease in older people, but protection against initial infections is often significantly weaker.
And children don’t usually get dangerously ill with Covid, which has led many parents to believe there aren’t enough benefits to justify the vaccination.
Pandemic fears have led many state and local officials to close schools in 2020 to protect children.
However, children in general are not nearly as susceptible to serious illness as older adults, especially seniors.
This fact has contributed to a general lack of enthusiasm among parents for scraping shots in children, as many parents simply do not believe they are worth the effort.
Younger people have a small risk of heart inflammation after vaccination with the mRNA vaccines, but most cases are mild and go away on their own.
Still, the low risk of serious Covid infection has made many parents cautious.
Widespread school closures are blamed for causing mental health crises among school-age children and causing a downward spiral in overall academic performance.
A Brookings Institution study last year found that average math test scores in grades three through eight in fall 2021 were 0.20 to 0.27 standard deviations (SD) lower than those of peers at the same level in fall 2019.
Standard deviations are used to indicate how much test results differ from the overall mean. A decrease of 0.20 to 0.27 standard deviations indicates a large decrease in math achievement.
At the same time, reading test scores dropped by 0.09 to 0.18 SDs.
Advocates for reopening schools, which include about 60 percent of American parents, have cited declining academic performance as a clear indication that in-person instruction is far better than letting kids learn from home via Zoom.
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Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
