"Abstract ... Given the minimal direct benefit of COVID‐19 vaccination for healthy children, the potential for rare risks to outweigh these benefits and to undermine vaccine confidence, the substantial evidence that COVID‐19 vaccination confers adequate protection to risk groups whether or not healthy children are vaccinated and that current vaccines do not provide sterilizing immunity, and given that eradication of the virus is neither feasible nor a high priority for global health, we argue that routine COVID‐19 vaccination of healthy children is currently ethically unjustified ...
2 Argument from Paternalism
2.1 Objection 1: Low risk of COVID-19 morbidity and mortality to children
According to the best available data, healthy children are at a much lower risk of severe illness from COVID‐19 and are less susceptible to infection than older adults. In contrast to many other vaccine‐preventable diseases, healthy children are at low risk of severe COVID‐19 infection, morbidity, and mortality ... We agree with the assessment that COVID‐19 is not a pediatric public health emergency ...
2.2 Objection 2: Known risks and unknown long-term vaccine safety profile for children
The case for vaccinating healthy children against COVID‐19 for their own sake is undermined by uncertainty; that is, by the currently poorly characterized potential for rare, harmful outcomes associated with the vaccines in children ... The restriction of AstraZeneca vaccines to older age groups due to blood clotting events early on in the COVID‐19 vaccination rollout, as well as reports of increased rates of vaccine‐related myocarditis among younger age groups, illustrates that rare risks are sometimes more common in younger age groups and might sometimes outweigh benefits in children ... Myocarditis‐induced deaths following COVID‐19 vaccination have been documented in adolescents as well as in adults. The risk of vaccine‐caused myocarditis appears to be higher in younger age groups—especially males—compared to older groups ... The U.K. Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) has moreover recommended against vaccinating healthy children ...
Vaccines have been recalled in the past after adverse effects in children were identified when the vaccine was already in routine use. In some cases, the adverse effects occurred many months after vaccine administration. The lack of long‐term safety data therefore warrants caution about vaccinating children against COVID‐19. Given that the combination of known vaccine risks and uncertainties (i.e., poorly characterized risks) might outweigh the limited benefits of COVID‐19 vaccination to healthy children, routine vaccination is ethically unjustified ...
3.2 Objection 4: Vulnerable groups can protect themselves and current vaccines do not provide sterilizing immunity
... [I]t has become clear that the current COVID‐19 vaccines do not provide sterilizing immunity. Protection against infection with the Omicron variant falls to zero percent within a few months of the second dose of vaccine, and a similar pattern is observed for third doses ...
4. Argument from Global Eradication
... Since no pandemic respiratory virus has ever been eradicated, this goal is in our view implausible ...
All things considered, neither routine nor mandatory vaccination of healthy children against COVID‐19 is currently ethically justified."
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9111802/
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