If anyone still believes that children are immune to Covid, the documented account of what is happening in Indonesia can only make them change their mind.
Hundreds of children die every week from Covid in Indonesia: over 800 since the beginning of the pandemic, of which 150 in the week from 12 to 20 July alone. Many of them are small, less than 5 years old.
Given the least risk group, in Indonesia, but also in other states such as Vietnam and Thailand, children are unfortunately also innocent victims of a health emergency. The sudden growth of the Delta variant of the virus, known for its high contagiousness, has found fertile ground in countries with a low percentage of vaccinated.
Covid vaccine for children: fears and uncertainties of parents. The advice of the pediatrician
by Elena Bozzola
In Indonesia, for example, the number of people who have completed the vaccination cycle is extremely small, stopping at 6.6% of the population. The infections therefore go crazy, exceeding 40,000 cases per day. Official data, but which could be underestimated due to the limited number of swabs that are performed for diagnostic purposes.
Not even children are spared from this tragedy who, unlike in previous months, are increasingly present in the bulletins of local health authorities, making up 12.5% of cases in the entire country. A country on its knees due to the low vaccination coverage of the population, fertile ground for the virus. The dead have already passed the 85,000 mark, with a surge in recent weeks.
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But there is more. Covid rages on the weakest, on the poorest, worsening the living conditions of those who already lived in a situation of material difficulty, precariousness, housing crowding. And it threatens the accessibility to care of the population, which is increasingly unable to keep up with the high demand for assistance.
Educational and cultural poverty compromise health even more, increasing the likelihood of death for people with low incomes and low levels of education. A phenomenon that was already true before the pandemic, but which is now getting worse. A phenomenon that is not confined to poor countries alone.
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by Noemi Penna
Even in Italy the pandemic has struck violently on the most socially vulnerable, poorest and most fragile people. Not only with regard to the use of treatment and health care. An alarming phenomenon concerns children from poor families who, due to disadvantages in the possibility of using distance learning, have lost significant opportunities for growth and learning.
Elena Bozzola is a pediatrician at the Bambino Gesù hospital in Rome
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