The youngest group eligible to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in the United States, children whose ages range from 5 to 11, is also the demographic with the lowest vaccination rate.
CNN analyzed data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with the numbers showing that less than 10 percent of kids ages 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated in about half of the counties in the U.S.
Majority of the counties with low vaccination rates against the coronavirus among children are in the South. Nearly two-thirds of counties that have vaccinated fewer than 10 percent of children ages 5 to 11 are from that particular region in the United States.
Maldonado concerned with low vaccination rates for children
Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, the current chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases, is disappointed with the low vaccination rates in the 5 to 11 age bracket, saying, "This has been a constant concern for all of us."
Maldonado added that it is very disturbing to see that families have not embraced vaccination. She told the New York Times that messaging on behalf of public health agencies needs to be more strategic.
According to the study, about 1,500 counties in the United States have less than 10 percent of this particular age group vaccinated. The figures are even worse in at least 500 U.S. counties, with less than 5 percent of this age group vaccinated.
According to the CDC, about 66 percent of the entire U.S. population is fully vaccinated overall, including nearly 90 percent of seniors and three-quarters of adults. The vaccination rate is higher than 50 percent nationally among adolescents ages 12 to 17.
That makes the vaccination rates for children ages 5 to 11 hugely disappointing. Less than 28 percent of children in this age bracket are fully vaccinated in the U.S., even though these kids have been eligible for a vaccination against COVID-19 for nearly five months already. Of the more than 3,100 U.S. counties, only a few dozen have more than half of this age group fully vaccinated.
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COVID vaccine hesitancy seen in South Carolina
The results were not a complete surprise to Dr. Brannon Traxler, the director of public health for South Carolina's Department of Health and Environmental Control. Traxler said that the overall vaccination rate in South Carolina lags behind the national average across all ages, more so with kids.
She said that vaccinating children in South Carolina has been particularly difficult because several parents perceive COVID-19 as a disease that affects only the elderly. According to the CDC, no county in that state has fully vaccinated more than a third of children ages 5 to 11.
According to a report by the Atlantic, it does not help matters that concerns have been raised about Pfizer's COVID vaccine for this age bracket. A recent study revealed that the vaccine did not protect kids ages 5 to 11 from disease or infection for as long as expected, even though the 10-microgram dose the children received had met the immunobridging benchmark set in the clinical trials.
