The outrage had been heard for weeks. The Standing Vaccination Commission will once again cook its own soup, annoyed politicians, journalists and citizens concerned about the health of children or their own health. Although Biontech’s corona vaccine is now approved for 12 to 15 year olds, Stiko will not recommend it to all children. Harsh accusations were loud: The Stiko unsettled the population and gambled away the chance of schools as Corona-safe places.
Now the Stiko submitted their recommendation – and even put one on top. She also recommends vaccination for 16 and 17 year olds only if they have pre-existing conditions or if people are at high risk in their environment. Under no circumstances should school openings be linked to vaccinations for children, emphasizes the Stiko.
The commission has resisted pressure to recommend vaccination for all children
One can only salute this commission. She has withstood the immense pressure from politics and society to recommend the vaccination widely and thus once again use children and young people for foreign interests. Your decision may confuse some people, as was the case with the evaluation of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine, which Stiko initially only recommended for under 65-year-olds, and later, when cerebral vein thrombosis occurred in younger people and more data became available for seniors to limit the recommendation to these elderly people in particular. But confusion is sometimes unavoidable when important things are at stake.
Stiko has a clear mandate: Its task is to evaluate approved vaccines according to the state of the art. It is not the task of the commission to support politics, to serve fears or secondary interests or even to stand up to anti-vaccination opponents. It may well be that some decisions are instrumentalized and also have negative effects, such as the devaluation of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine or the satisfaction of some opponents of vaccination. But for the higher purpose it is necessary to accept that the benefits and risks are weighed up on a scientifically sound basis. Stiko has always remained true to this claim during the pandemic. In the long term, she will not only strengthen trust in her work, but also in the vaccinations.
The facts are clear on the table: healthy children and adolescents do not need a corona vaccination because they rarely get seriously ill; at the same time, the risks of vaccination have hardly been studied for them. School is also possible without child vaccinations. So you can only reasonably agree with the Stiko. It is quite possible that the facts will soon be different. Then Stiko will adjust its recommendation. And people will understand this better and better the more often it happens.