Florida to recommend against Covid-19 vaccine for healthy children

Florida surgeon general recommends against Covid vaccination for 'healthy' children The state's top medical officer cited possible links to myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, among young males as the rationale for his suggestion. NBC News

Florida's surgeon general on Monday said "healthy" children should not get Covid-19 vaccines.

In a roundtable featuring Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced that "the Florida Department of Health is going to be the first state to officially recommend against the Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children."

The reasons for that guidance, DeSantis and Ladapo said, have to do with lingering questions about the vaccines' potential health risks for young people. In rare cases, mRNA vaccines have been linked to myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, among young men and teenage boys.

However, neither Ladapo nor DeSantis offered details on what qualifies a child as "healthy" nor the specific age group to which they were referring.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been monitoring reports of myocarditis, and found that cases of the condition "have rarely been reported, especially in adolescents and young adult males within several days after" vaccination.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in January suggested that even among the group with the most reports of myocarditis — males ages 16 and 17 — the rate was about 106 out of 1 million.

Those who have reported myocarditis have generally "responded well to medicine and rest and felt better quickly," the CDC said.

Dr. Marissa Levine, director of the Center for Leadership in Public Health Practice at the University of South Florida, said the small risks presented by myocarditis are far outweighed by the proven benefit of Covid vaccines.

"What we saw here was a small group of people talking about some specific data they may have but it's not a comprehensive view of what's going on," Levine said of DeSantis' roundtable, which also included several doctors and researchers.

And Dr. Tina Carroll-Scott, medical director at South Miami Children’s Clinic, called the new state directive “irresponsible and incorrect.”

“Whatever slight risk there may be with your child getting myocarditis from the vaccine, the risk is way higher from the actual infection from Covid. We need to put that in perspective,” she said. ...