the Chair of the Standing Vaccination Commission, Thomas Mertens, has admitted with his personal testimony to reject a Child vaccination against Corona to have made a mistake. Mertens had stated in a podcast in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” at the beginning of December that if he had a seven or eight year old child, he would “probably not have it vaccinated now”.
Mertens told the news channel Welt on Friday: “The decision about the vaccination is really a very personal matter, and that is reflected in our current vaccination recommendation. It was probably the only mistake I made back then that I said anything personal at all. ”
On Thursday, the Stiko recommended vaccination of children aged five to eleven who have risk factors for a severe course of Covid-19 or relatives at high risk. In addition, parents can also have their healthy children vaccinated after they have been informed.
There are scientifically sound reasons why the Stiko has not issued a general vaccination recommendation for children from five to eleven years of age, but only for previously ill children. There is not enough data about the safety of vaccines for children, so Mertens. A look at the USA does not help either. Many children have been vaccinated there, but data are needed on what has become of these children. These are currently not available.