There is a call for more rapid vaccination of under-12s in the Balearics, where at present some 30,000 children out of a 5-11 population of around 84,000 have so far been vaccinated.
Data indicate that 227 minors have been admitted to hospital because of Covid since the start of the pandemic. Of these, 22 have needed to be placed in intensive care units, nine of them during the course of the current wave. The only death of a minor has been recorded during this wave. The figures in the Balearics are in line with those at a national level.
Juan Carlos de Carlos, the head of the paediatric ICU service at Son Espases, says that "any avoidable admission must be avoided, and the vaccine can do this". "The benefit is clear and direct in preventing hospital admissions, those in a serious condition and deaths."
Mariana Mambié, president of the Balearic Primary Care Paediatrics Association, says: "We want to send a reassuring and clear message so that those who have not made the decision take the step forward. Because there have been so many cases of infection lately, there are families who have been delaying it for four weeks after recovery."
It is recommended that they get vaccinated as immunity will last longer and reinforce defences produced through the natural disease. Vaccination doesn't prevent contracting Covid, "but does prevent it from developing seriously".