On Friday, the Public Health Agency of Sweden announced the removal of the recommendation on general vaccination against COVID-19 for ages 12 to 17.
Earlier this year, Sweden decided against recommending COVID vaccines for children aged 5-11 because the benefits did not outweigh the risks.
“With the knowledge we have today, with a low risk for serious disease for kids, we don’t see any clear benefit with vaccinating them,” Health Agency official Britta Bjorkholm said during a news conference.
The Swedish government has now announced that the COVID-19 vaccine mandate will be removed for healthy children and adolescents under the age of 18 because the “risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19 in children and young people is very low.”
“The general recommendation for basically healthy children aged 12–17 years to vaccinate against covid-19 ends after 31 October. The reason is the very low risk of serious illness and death from covid-19 in children and young people. In the future, vaccination against covid-19 is recommended for children in special groups,” according to the news release.
Very few young persons under the age of 18 have become very ill from COVID-19 during this outbreak.
“Current knowledge and epidemiology show that the virus variants for SARS-CoV-2 cause increasingly mild symptoms for fundamentally healthy children and young people, and that immunity in the group is very high,” said Sören Andersson, head of unit at the Public Health Agency.
“Overall, we see that the need for care as a result of covid-19 has been low among children and young people during the pandemic, and has also decreased since the omicron virus variant began to spread. At this stage of the pandemic, we do not see a continued need for vaccination in this group. Therefore, we are removing the recommendation on general vaccination against covid-19 for ages 12 to 17,” he added.
More from the news release:
The decision means that from 1 November 2022 only children in special groups with increased sensitivity to covid-19 are recommended and thus offered vaccination against covid-19. It is about individuals within groups that are judged to be more sensitive to respiratory infections in general, or have a significantly reduced immune system. These groups are defined by the Swedish Pediatric Association.
For fundamentally healthy children and young people, SARS-CoV-2, according to the Public Health Agency and representatives from the pediatric profession and the Swedish Pediatric Association, can be considered a common respiratory virus in this phase of the pandemic.
The general recommendation on vaccination against covid-19 is only removed for fundamentally healthy children in the 12-17 year age group. For those who have turned 18, the recommendation for adults applies, that you should take three doses to have basic protection against covid-19.
The Public Health Authority’s decision has been made after dialogue with representatives of relevant organisations, including the Swedish Association of Pediatricians and the National Program Area (NPO) for children and young people’s health. The state of knowledge and the epidemiology of covid-19 is continuously monitored. In the event of a possible change in the situation for children and young people in Sweden, the recommendations may change.
Another EU country that barred the COVID vaccines is Denmark.
Denmark barred people under 50 from receiving the COVID vaccine.
In July 2022, it was no longer possible for children and adolescents aged under 18 to get the first COVID vaccine injection and, after September 1, 2022, it was no longer possible for them to get the second injection.
BREAKING: An interesting update from Denmark’s Health Authority was published yesterday:
Denmark will no longer offer boosters and vaccines to persons under 50 not at high risk.
Source: https://t.co/exDcUGhZPX pic.twitter.com/0TS0JhnJk7
— New World Odor (@hugh_mankind) September 14, 2022
It can be recalled that both of these EU countries, Sweden and Denmark, halted the Moderna COVID vaccinations for those under 30 years old due to possible side effects in October 2021, as reported by The Gateway Pundit.
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