Covid Shots for Children

Much of the world has decided that most young children do not need to receive Covid booster shots. It’s true in Britain, France, Japan and Australia.

Some countries, like India, have gone further. They say that otherwise healthy children do not need even an initial Covid vaccination. In Germany, public health experts don’t recommend vaccines for any children, including teenagers, unless they have a medical condition.

Scientists in these countries understand that Covid vaccines are highly effective. But the experts have concluded that the benefits for children often fail to outweigh the costs.

The benefits are modest because children are extremely unlikely to become seriously ill from Covid and are less likely to transmit the virus than an adult is. The costs include the financial price of mass vaccination, the possibility that a shot’s side effects will make a child sick enough to miss school, the tiny chance of more serious side effects and the inherent uncertainty about long-term effects.

The U.S. — as American readers have probably realized by this point in the newsletter — is a global outlier. The C.D.C. urges booster shots for all children six months and older.

Yet the recommendation has failed to accomplish much. Instead, most American parents have chosen to overrule the C.D.C. Only about 40 percent of children under 12 have been vaccinated against Covid, and only about 5 percent are up to date on their boosters.