Photo by Mat Napo
The desire for Brazilian parents to have their children aged 5 to 11 vaccinated is clear. One mother, who has gone through the trauma of experiencing an infection in her child, said it would put her mind at ease if kids were vaccinated.
According to information from the Ministry of Health, the deaths of at least 308 children aged from 5 to 11 have been caused by Covid-19 infections.
Covid has killed more children than meningitis and measles combined, quickly catching up on the number of deaths caused by road accidents. A pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases Marcelo Otsuka said that Covid is responsible for ending an alarming life expectancy among children.
Now that the Covid-19 vaccination campaigns for children aged 5 – 11 are underway, it offers a sigh of relief to many of Brazil’s parents. On Monday, the deployment for these vaccines began, with only a few weeks until school starts in February.
The number of people who believe in vaccinations for children is overwhelming. A recent survey from Datafolha Institute showed that 79% of respondents aged 16 and above agree with this idea, and it’s not surprising considering how much better protected they will be.
Some parents have been waiting a month to get their kids vaccinated, but it seems like the vaccinations aren’t coming fast enough for them.
It seems as though their own president, Jair Bolsonaro has caused these delays with his vaccination stance on the matter and lack thereof being vaccinated himself.
The Brazilian president has been widely criticized for his handling of the virus. This includes telling people not to get vaccinated, even though Brazil is seeing one of its worst coronavirus outbreaks in history. And now, he opposed the child vaccination campaign.
The Brazilian commander-in-chief has been highly critical of the decision to approve a Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for children in his country. He called it an “unbelievable” occurrence and threatened that any staff members behind this Anvisa move would face the public disclosure of their identities.
The identities of those staff were revealed when a Whatsapp group coordination was leaked by Congresswoman Bia Kicis, who also opposed childhood vaccinations and is a loyal supporter of Bolsonaro.
When confronted with this information, Kicis defended her actions by saying that she assumed it would be available in public during the trial of this issue earlier this month.
