“Corona vaccine, group immunity when children get it”

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[아시아경제 조유진 기자] In Israel, where the COVID-19 vaccination rate is the No. 1, it was diagnosed that vaccination against children is inevitable for the formation of collective immunity.

In an interview with the Times of Israel on the 4th (local time), professor Nadav Davidovich Ben-Gurion University, an advisor to respond to Corona 19 in Israel, revealed that group immunity is difficult without vaccination of children, who make up 30% of the population.

In Israel, which is undergoing a collective immunization test, about 3.3 million people, over 35% of the total population (about 9.3 million people), completed the first vaccination, and the number of people who completed the second vaccination exceeded 1.9 million. Israel began vaccinating with the Pfizer vaccine last December.

Professor Davidovich said, “The strong infectivity of the mutant virus has raised the threshold of collective immunity,” he said. “The vaccination rate should be at least 80%.” “30% of Israel’s population are children and adolescents, and they cannot reach mass immunity without vaccinating them.”

Professor Jili Regev-Yochai, an infectious disease expert at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel, also told Channel 13 that “group immunity is difficult without child vaccination in a situation where the mutant virus is mainstream and the number of N-type infections increases.”

In addition, Dr. Boaz Rev, a member of the Israeli government’s vaccine advisory committee, said, “90% of the total population is immune only when children reach collective immunity through COVID-19 infection.”

Currently, inoculation for students and children under the age of 16 is unprecedented, and safety verification through clinical trials has not been conducted at all. Professor Regeb-Yochai said, “Unfortunately, at the present time (via vaccine), the achievement of collective immunity is farther away,” he said. “For the time being, we must live with the coronavirus.”

Israel continues to have close to 8,000 confirmed cases per day despite massive vaccinations and strong containment measures.

Reporter Jo Yu-jin [email protected]

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