Health experts are warning that the delays in vaccinating primary school aged students may have adverse consequences as schools ready to return in the coming weeks.
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With the Delta strain continuing to spread across the nation, children are now more likely to get the virus, but are still unlikely to get seriously ill from it.
The rate of infection for those aged between zero and 16 has jumped 10 times as high with the Delta strain.
But, of those children who do get the virus, only about 2 per cent will end up needing hospitalisation.
That number rises slightly until the age of 18, when it then rises sharply.
This week, NSW premier Dominic Perrottet unveiled a revised roadmap to re-opening after some parts of the state faced more than 100 days in lockdown this year. Under the revision, students will return to the classrooms in two stages.
Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 12 students will return on October 18 while the remaining students will come back to school on October 25.
Meanwhile, in Victoria it was revealed today that masks will become mandatory for students in Years 3 to 6 once classes resume, in the hopes of stopping the spread of coronavirus to the unvaccinated children.
Head of Melbourne University's School of Population and Global Health, Professor Nancy Baxter is among the voices calling for children across the nation to become part of the vaccine rollout plan.
"Certainly the more of the adult and teenage population that we can get vaccinate, the safer children will be," said Professor Baxter.
As of August teens have now been brought into national vaccine strategy, and so far, 60.2 per cent of people aged over 16 in Australia are fully vaccinated.
But the use of COVID-19 vaccinations on children under the age of 12 is yet to be approved by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI).
Pfizer recently announced that it had begun testing the vaccine in children as young as five, and this week began lobbying the American government to grant emergency approval for use in the younger children.
"Children aged five to 11 don't recieve the full dose, they recieve a third of the dose of Pfizer," Professor Baxter said.
"The studies have shown they have a very good immune reaction to it."
So far, Moderna and Pfizer are the vaccines of choice for younger people.
That's because these are mRNA vaccines as opposed to the AstraZeneca which uses an adenovirus vector that has been linked to higher cases of Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis (clotting) in younger people.
"The AstraZeneca is associated with a rare side effect related to clotting,"
"It does seem that clotting side effect is more common and more serious in younger people. Also we know that older people have more to gain by being vaccinated so the balance of benefit and risk definitely weighs for AstraZeneca definitely weighs on the side of the vaccine [for older people].
"So when you think of vaccinating younger people, they have less to gain from the vaccine because they don't get sick as much and they're unlikely to die, fortunately. So if the risk is higher for clotting then it makes no sense to give that vaccine to younger people."
With billions of adults now innoculated worldwide, Professor Baxter argues the vaccines have proven effecacy and safety.
"In general when you have a new medication, it's tested on adults first," Professor Baxter said.
"We now have had billions of people receiving vaccines. They're very safe, so once the effectiveness of the vaccines was established in adults, then the next thing would be to look at children."
But, in the absence of vaccination, protecting children from the virus will come down to a variety of strategies which Professor Baxter describes as being the 'vaccines plus' approach.
Keeping year groups separated, increasing classroom ventillation and outdoor learning opportunities, monitoring for even the slightest suggestion of sickness in students and encouraging the wearing of masks will all help to reduce the risk.
"When children go back to school it's really important they're community is vaccinated, so that means parents, teachers, anyone who works at the school is vaccinated," Professor Baxter said.