Youth vaccination rates worry some

Children in affluent towns more likely to be vaccinated than rural, city kids

With the rate of vaccinations among adults far higher than that of youths, data from the state Department of Public Health suggests that thousands of parents chose to take the COVID-19 shots for themselves but have not gotten their children inoculated.

One of those people is Brian, a father of three who lives in Fairfield County.

The 44-year-old, who declined to give his last name, said he sat for the immunization in March due to his job in the medical field. But he said he wants to see long-term safety data before making a decision to get his kids, ages 12 and 14, inoculated. He also has a 10-year old, who is not yet eligible due to age restric

tions.

“With my children, I’m not willing to take that risk,” he said, adding that his kids have received other vaccines, including the flu shot.

Brian’s view helps explain why, as of Thursday, 71 percent of all Connecticut residents eligible for the vaccine — ages 12 and up — had rolled up their sleeves for the shots. But only 49 percent of youths ages 12 to 17 have been fully vaccinated, just as schools prepare to reopen in a resurgence of the coronavirus.

The numbers show a very wide range of vaccination rates for that age group. Thompson, Canterbury and Hartford hold down the low end at 25 percent. Nine towns stand above 75 percent for youths — including Greenwich, New Canaan, Darien, Westport and Wilton.

Low rates, strict rules

The low vaccination rates for kids compared with adults is of “tremendous concern,” said Dr. Thomas Murray, a pediatric infectious disease doctor at Yale New Haven Health. His concern is heightened, he said, “especially with the delta variant being highly contagious and many areas not mandating masks for schools.”

Gov. Ned Lamont might reaffirm his previous order of masks for all schools in the coming days, though his emergency powers expire Sept. 30. Or he might leave the decision to local boards of education. Either way, many public health officials warn that without higher inoculation rates for children, and with those under 12 still unable to get vaccinated, schools will have to rely on other mitigation measures.

That includes stricter distancing and mask rules, including requiring all students to wear masks regardless of vaccination status, to make in-person learning safe.

This is all playing out, as Connecticut, like most states, is seeing an increase in infections among children, due to the more virulent delta variant.

“Our hospital has not seen an increase in children getting hospitalized with Covid like other parts of country have seen,” Murray said. “It’s unclear if we’re behind and it’s coming or if our vaccination rates in the adult population will help curb that.”

Rich towns, high youth vaccinations

The newly released data on young people ages 12 to 17 shows that parents in affluent towns near cities and along the shoreline are more likely to have children who are vaccinated than are parents in rural areas and cities.

Another pattern emerges from the data: Towns with higher overall vaccination rates tend to have rates for youths closer to the overall levels. Greenwich, Westport and Darien, for example, have virtually the same vaccination rates for people ages 12 to 17 as they do for everyone.

That means those towns probably have fewer people like Brian who are willing to be inoculated but skittish about their children — although numbers are impossible to glean because the data is not broken out by which adults have children.

By contrast, cities and towns with the lowest overall rates of vaccination — Thompson, Hartford, New Britain, Bridgeport, Waterbury and Windham, for example, all under 55 percent — tend to show the biggest gap between youth rates and the rates for all residents. All of those places had youth rates under 29 percent.

In all, so far a total of 2.2 million state residents are fully vaccinated out of 3.1 million eligible. That includes 140,802 youths ages 12 to 17, out of 286,082 in that age group.

A Hearst Connecticut Media examination of vaccination data on Aug. 7 showed a close link between overall rates in cities and towns and the percent of adults with bachelor’s degrees.

The two-dose PfizerBioNTech vaccine is the only shot currently authorized for age group although Moderna, the other company that uses so-called mRNA technology, says its vaccines are also safe for teens. As of Thursday, 58 percent of Connecticut residents ages 12 to 17 had one shot, up from 55 percent a week earlier.

Dangers of delta in youths

The surge of delta cases has led to an uptick in COVID-19 vaccinations here and across the country.

“Delta has unfortunately changed the game in terms of what we have to expect,” said Dr. Magna Dias, chair of pediatrics at Bridgeport Hospital.

“The load of the virus for the delta variant is 1,000 times higher than original variant and because of that it’s a lot more infectious,” Dias said. “It’s similar to chicken pox. We would never send kids to school with chicken pox.”

But while the symptoms of chicken pox are obvious, coronavirus symptoms can mirror other illnesses like the common cold and often at the beginning of an infection, people can have mild symptoms or no symptoms at all even if their viral load is high.

“All of that means it’s a little more difficult to identify the kids coming to school and getting others infected,” Dias said.