Part III-Recommendations, Policy Solutions, and Advocacy- 7-8 pages on its own without reference/work cited page How is this problem currently being addressed? Revisit content first considered in part


A Summary of COVID-19: Vaccinate the Young to Protect the Old?

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A Summary of COVID-19: Vaccinate the Young to Protect the Old?

My topic revolves around vaccinating the young to protect the older individuals in society. It is best to begin the whole process by vaccinating the children and youth during the covid-19 vaccine administration since it protects older citizens. Vaccinating the younger generation should be a priority in every society since the process maximizes the advantages of indirect immunity to the older citizens and the vulnerable groups. Vaccinating children and teenagers will ensure that the mortality rate of the pandemic goes down by a greater percentage. Covid-19 is no different from flu in that the majority of the casualties come from the older population. The reason behind such a high death rate of individuals aged 65 years and above come from the weakening immune systems as people grow old (Giubilini et al., 2020). On the other hand, children do not experience the severe consequences that the older generation experience, although they are the group that is mostly infected by the virus. Moreover, the virus lasts extended periods in children and teenagers. As a result, this category of the population is a threat to the older generation since they are agents of infection.

This topic is of much interest to me and the entire society who deem it worthy of vaccinating the older population and the vulnerable before administering the vaccine to children and teenagers. Vaccinating children and teenagers will alleviate the primary agents of infection in society. In other words, vaccinating the younger population first helps build immunity against further infection for the older generation. Therefore, the health system should consider vaccinating the children first since they do not experience the severity of the infection like the elderly. Besides, the older population easily gets exposed to the virus from the younger generation as they are the highly interactive groups and come to contact with the majority of the people in most cases. As a result, they should be vaccinated so that they do not pass the virus to the older individuals who do not mingle too much. It is also quite easy for the older individuals to maintain the pandemic requirements than it is for the youths who still attend schools, sports, and so on. Hence, vaccinating the younger generation will provide herd immunity for the older populations in society.

Reference

Giubilini, A., Savulescu, J., & Wilkinson, D. (2020). COVID-19 vaccine: vaccinate the young to protect the old?. Journal of Law and the Biosciences, 7(1), lsaa050.