CDC Urges Parents to Get Children Vaccinated Before School Starts

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is urging parents to get their eligible children vaccinated for the Chinese coronavirus prior to the fall 2021 school year, despite lingering concerns about the possible development of heart inflammation conditions in young people who receive the mRNA vaccines.

“Parents: Prevent #COVID19 from spreading at school. Get kids 12+ fully vaccinated before school begins,” the federal health agency said Friday, adding that children who are not fully vaccinated should wear a mask indoors.

“In areas where COVID-19 is spreading, kids who are not fully vaccinated should #WearAMask indoors, on the school bus, and in crowded outdoor settings,” it added:

Parents: Prevent #COVID19 from spreading at school. Get kids 12+ fully vaccinated before school begins. In areas where COVID-19 is spreading, kids who are not fully vaccinated should #WearAMask indoors, on the school bus, and in crowded outdoor settings. https://t.co/EY4kdEaqkI pic.twitter.com/3y6J5asFNd

— CDC (@CDCgov) July 9, 2021

The CDC released its updated school guidance on Friday, recognizing it as a “priority” for children to safely return to in-person instruction in the fall. However, it also made it clear that children who are unvaccinated should continue to wear masks:

The federal health agency released updated guidance Friday, recognizing in-person learning for children as extremely beneficial and listing their return to the classrooms as a “priority.” This is “regardless of whether all of the prevention strategies can be implemented at the school.” Nonetheless, it is still advancing the notion that unvaccinated children should continue to wear masks in school. Currently, children under the age of 12 are not cleared to receive a vaccine. As such, the CDC recommends “layered prevention strategies” to “protect” the unvaccinated.

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The update includes a list of bullet points, outlining the agency’s guidance for children to return to school in the fall. It is now recommending schools to keep a 3-foot distance between students in classrooms, “combined with indoor mask wearing by people who are not fully vaccinated, to reduce transmission risk.” It also recommends masks to be work indoors by all individuals over the age of 2 who are not “fully vaccinated.” However, the guidance does not specify if the CDC expects schools to identify unvaccinated children and teachers publicly and hold them to those standards.

The CDC’s vaccine push follows the federal agency recognizing a likely link between the development of heart inflammation conditions in young people, primarily young men, after receiving either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. However, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices concluded that the benefits of receiving the vaccine outweigh the risk of developing myocarditis.

The CDC is currently investigating the death of a 13-year-old Michigan boy who died in his sleep two days after receiving the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. According to the Detroit Free Press, “The family was told that preliminary autopsy findings suggest Jacob’s heart was enlarged when he died and there was fluid around his heart.”

Fabio Berlingieri, the father of a 17-year-old, appeared on Fox & Friends this week, speaking about how his son developed a heart condition after receiving the Pfizer vaccine:

According to Berlingieri, his son’s troponin levels were “off the charts,” and he remained in the hospital for a couple of days, causing him to miss his prom. The teen “barely made his graduation” and was also informed he cannot do “all the things he loves to do” due to his condition, including playing soccer in the fall.

His father added that the last cardiologist check-in showed his EKG a “little off.”

“What happened, I guess, is the oxygen doesn’t get in those areas. So it has to heal. So he has to be very careful that he doesn’t do anything strenuous so his heart rate doesn’t increase and [put him in] danger of a heart attack,” Berlingieri said.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Dr. Nicole Saphier said in reaction to Berlingieri’s story, expressing that the FDA should “look a little bit closer at these vaccines before they continue having universal recommendations.”