A COVID vaccine for kids should be mandatory

Challenging decisions can transform anyone into a politician. The tough calls — large and small — reliably inspire people to debate, obfuscate or filibuster. Children impulsively execute these tactics, as well, via similar methods known as arguing, bluffing and holding their breath until they get their way.

For politicians, kids and the rest, the strategy is often to buy time. Maybe a different obstacle will come along and consume attention. Or perhaps the decision will be taken out of their hands.

There’s been no urgency for state officials to determine whether to make it mandatory for young children to be vaccinated for COVID-19. Such a remedy hasn’t existed.

That is on the verge of changing now that PfizerBioNTech has forwarded encouraging trial results to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

There is wisdom in applying caution to next steps. But the state Department of Public Health and the state Department of Education responded that it’s too early to declare if a vaccination would be a requirement for eligible students.

It’s not that we expect a mandate of an as-yet-unproven vaccine. But state officials have had more than a year to contemplate various scenarios that could help halt this devastating disease. We need to agree that protecting healthy children is as important as shielding everyone they are in contact with — teachers, friends, grandparents and strangers.

If this were a blockbuster movie — and though COVID has threatened that industry it certainly plays like a franchise plot — this is the point where there would be an uplifting montage of children across the nation joining the battle to a swelling Hans Zimmer soundtrack.

It’s not just children who don’t like getting shots, as evidenced by adults who are unswayed by encouragements to get vaccinated. But federal and state officials need to start the movement to put peer pressure on parents and children.

Left to their own devices, most people don’t even bother to get a flu shot. While the U.S. government targets 70 percent of the population as the goal, 49.2 percent of people 6 months and older got a flu vaccine in the 2018-19 season, and those numbers dropped dramatically after age 17.

The counterargument is that this isn’t a decision that has to be made now. But we know from the battle in Hartford over efforts to erase the religious exemption on vaccines that there will be an outcry. And the new normal will likely call for annual vaccine shots.

No group needs life to return to normal as much as children. The emotional impact of the past year will likely shape them for the rest of their lives. They will be the COVID Generation.

We may still have a few months of the current academic year remaining until the final alarm, but we are also six months away from schools opening again. If there’s a possibility of safely vaccinating children and fully opening classrooms, there should be no debate.

If this were a blockbuster movie, this is the point where there would be an uplifting montage of children across the nation joining the battle to a swelling Hans Zimmer soundtrack.