West Cook News

Village of Oak Park Department of Public Health director Theresa D. Chapple is advocating vaccination in young children.

“Bedtime story for the 4-year-old is about a little girl who waited 18 months longer than her momma and seven months longer than her big sisters to get vaccinated against COVID tomorrow," Chapple said in a tweet. "She's hyped. We're hyped. Soon we will all be vaxxed!” 

Public health experts have said 75% of children already have antibodies that protect them from COVID-19, NBC News reported.

“[P]ersons who survived a previous infection had lower case rates than persons who were vaccinated alone,” a January 28, 2022, study focusing on California and New York found. 

Previous findings, according to Reuters, indicate that prior infection provides more protection against reinfection of COVID-19 than vaccination.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has noted his insistence that parents think twice before vaccinating very young children given the unknowns of vaccinating every child who is overwhelmingly unlikely to contract the disease. 

“I would say we are affirmatively against the COVID vaccine for young kids,” DeSantis said during a press conference, according to WebMD. “These are the people who have zero risk of getting anything.” 

He famously refused to preorder the vaccine for children in the state. 

“To do an emergency-use authorization for a 6-month-old or a 1-year-old simply to placate anxiety, that’s not the standard when you’re doing this,” DeSantis said.

A vaccine injury program set up by Congress prior to COVID-19 has quickly become overwhelmed by applicants after the vaccine was introduced, Politico reported.

Meanwhile, a new study found direct evidence that heart failure caused by the second dose of vaccination has resulted in the deaths of young men. This is based on direct evidence from autopsy, which, as the study says, has not been conducted in many other cases of suspicious death after vaccination. Its lead author is Yale University medical professor James R. Gill and is available in the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, which is giving some pause given the low rate of death and/or significant disease in children due to COVID-19 and the lack of significant benefit from vaccination or booster. 

“Myocarditis in adolescents has been diagnosed clinically following the administration of the second dose of an mRNA vaccine for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),” the study reads.