The fear of missing work so as not to lose wages, the lack of immigration status and health insurance, as well as the doubts fueled by the bad information that is distributed on social networks, are among the main barriers to that Latinos do not take their children to get vaccinated against Covid – .
Experts on the subject met during the videoconference “ Vaccination of children, how young? why? What do parents think ”, organized by Ethnic Media Services in which they talked about the special risks that children and adolescents have against the virus, what are some of the barriers they face to get vaccinated and why What some parents doubt?
It must be said that Covid – 19 is among the 10 leading causes of death among young people, so the vaccination of children of 12 to 17 years has become the next great goal in pandemic control.
Dr. José Pérez, chief medical officer at the South Central Family Health Center in Los Angeles, said that one of the main reasons for the lack of vaccination among Latino children is that their parents cannot Missing work.
“Most of them work in low-income jobs such as restaurants or they are day laborers who have just returned to work after the pandemic, so it is a burden for them to take a day off. ”
To that we must add that they still have their children at home because they don’t go to school. “That is a tremendous barrier, as are the doubts about vaccines.” And in this, he pointed out that we cannot deny the role of social networks in which a lot of poor information is disseminated. ”
AND cited the case of a patient who asked if the vaccine causes infertility because they commented on it on social platforms. “I took some time to educate this mother and let her know that there is no link between the use of the vaccine in adults and children that point to infertility.”
He pointed out that another great barrier at least for South Central patients has to do with immigration status. “Our patients who are undocumented are afraid of the government. Some do not want to come to the clinic or go to county facilities for fear of jeopardizing whatever immigration status they are trying to achieve. ”
Dr. Pérez said that many do not have health insurance and think that they should pay for the vaccine and that they cannot receive it for free.
How do young people respond to vaccination?
“ What I found especially with Latino adolescent boys who are connected to social media, is that they seem to be more in tune with the vaccine. They have much more and better information than their parents. And it is our children or adolescents who are really helping to educate them. ”
He recalled that the Pfizer vaccine has been approved for children of 12 to 17 years and this is the group that is very active on social networks. “At least in south central Los Angeles, our experience is that our teens are very willing to get vaccinated.”
At the beginning When the vaccines came out, he said that most of the time, the grandparents who are the least tech-savvy had to rely on the youngest grandchildren to access the web and schedule vaccine appointments.
If Latinos continue without being vaccinated, and the 15 In June the economy opens and the use of a mask will no longer be required for all Californians, what will be the risk for All society?
“We cannot force people to get vaccinated. The hope is that they hear our voice. Because this is the way they are going to protect themselves and eventually we are going to overcome that crisis ”.
But he expressed concern because only around the 35% of the community in general has been vaccinated. “ That means that from 6 to 7 of each 10 people I meet on the street, when I go out for lunch, have not been vaccinated. Therefore, there is a risk that within the Latino community we will have a mini wave of infections and we know that Latinos have a higher risk of diabetes, hypertension and some of the chronic diseases that put us at risk ”.
Do you think that vaccination should be mandatory to attend schools?
“The reason we don’t have a polio, chickenpox, mumps or rubella epidemic is because they are required to get vaccinated. There doesn’t have to be a difference. If we want to protect children and, by extension, the elderly in the family, we must make it mandatory. ”
The influence of mothers
Matthew Simonson , researcher at the Covid States Project and author of the report “Vacunando to the Youth of the United States ”, said that a survey in early May to see what are the attitudes of parents to vaccinate children, showed that many young mothers do not Neither they nor their children want to be vaccinated.
“We divide the parents into groups of 35 years and less, and 36 and more. A third of the younger mothers said it was highly unlikely that they would allow their children to be vaccinated. In contrast, the 15% of all parents ages, they have that resistance. ”
Regarding the racial level, it was detected that African-American and Latino families have the same level of resistance to vaccination. They even point out that the vaccine is a government conspiracy.
And the higher the income, the better the acceptance of the vaccines and the same in terms of to education. “Those with a high school diploma resist the vaccine, and college graduates are most in favor of vaccinating their children.”
Simonson states that the use of social networks is one of the big problems because bad information is spread among people with lower socioeconomic status, specifically among parents.
Why is it important for children to get vaccinated?
Dr. Grace Lee, Associate Medical Director of Practice Innovation and Infectious Diseases at Stanford Children’s Health and a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, said we haven’t paid much attention to what’s going on with our children.
“According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 22 million children and adolescents between 5 and 17 years have turned out positive; and since they returned to classes, there have been reports of hospitalization among the youngest who are not yet protected. ”
He stressed that We have a disproportionate number of African American and Hispanic children in intensive care units, who are also the most affected by Multisystemic Inflammatory Syndrome (MISC) which occurs approximately two to six weeks after Covid infection occurs- 19.
Regarding the number of deaths among children, they have been reported 117 between 12 and 17 years. “People see these numbers and think that it is not much, but if that child were their child or relative, it takes on another dimension.”
Dr. Lee encouraged everyone to feel good about vaccinating their children, because they will protect the whole family and participate with more confidence in all their activities.