Some residents have contacted me expressing concern about the safety of Covid-19 vaccines for adolescents, after reading reports of heart infections in a small proportion of young men who received the Pfizer vaccine. However, according to the Mayo Clinic, getting infected with Covid-19 itself can be the cause of myocarditis, so not vaccinating also brings risks to our children. My wife and I have therefore decided to register our child for both doses of the vaccine.
Nevertheless, I have filed a question in Parliament to ask if schools will grant students at least one week of excuse from strenuous physical activity in school after each dose of the vaccine, and whether schools will carry out active monitoring of students’ condition post-vaccination to detect symptoms of myocarditis or pericarditis. This question will be answered at the next sitting of Parliament in early July.
Update (23 Jun):
My post appears to have induced a strong response from those concerned about vaccine safety. Here is my reply to one of those comments:
I am a concerned parent myself with skin in the game! I share the same concerns about vaccine safety and have done a lot of reading and consulting with doctors. However, I am not a physician and so I prefer to rely on the advice of specialists in this field, rather than the alarming WhatsApp messages I’ve been receiving. So far MOH’s Expert Committee on Vaccinations, the US CDC and even WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts have said that the Pfizer vaccine is suitable for adolescents albeit with a very small risk of myocarditis and pericarditis. More importantly, many (anecdotally, most) parents have consented to their adolescents receiving the vaccine. So it is important that we manage the post-vaccine risk rather than simply discouraging parents from vaccinating their children, hence my Parliamentary question.
