Gov. Phil Scott has promised that vaccines will deliver a return to normalcy this summer. The entire adult population will be eligible by mid-April, meaning that anyone who wants to get the vaccine could get it by mid-June.
“To put a finer point on it for high school seniors, this timeline means that in June, if we have the vaccination uptake we need, you should be able to have a more traditional graduation and celebrate what you’ve accomplished with your friends and family,” Scott said.
But as the state celebrates, one sizable population won’t be able to take advantage of the loosening restrictions: Children younger than 16 and, by extension, their parents.
None of the vaccines approved by the federal government are currently recommended for children younger than 16, since the initial vaccine trials didn’t test that population. Only the Pfizer vaccine is recommended for children 16 and 17 years old.
With estimates for a kid’s vaccine ranging from summer to fall to 2022, parents are left wondering what they’ll be able to do with their children.
Elizabeth Townsend, a nurse at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, is hoping to get clearer guidance before the summer. Her family keeps a camper across the border in New York, where they would normally travel on weekends when the weather — and state restrictions — allow.
“Last year, we kind of lived week-by-week by the travel map,” she said.
But Vermont’s current travel restrictions only allow vaccinated people to travel out of state without quarantine. Townsend’s kids are 17, eight and six. While her oldest has committed to getting the vaccine when he’s eligible, her younger two could effectively be barred from out-of-state travel.
Both would be kept home from school under quarantine requirements — and Townsend and her husband, both essential workers, can’t stay home from work.
Townsend is hoping to make plans to travel to Indiana, where her husband’s family is recovering from the loss of a relative to Covid. But she’s stuck waiting until the rules change.
“It’s all so uncertain,” she said.
Dr. Mark Levine, commissioner of the Department of Health, has promised further clarity in the coming weeks, particularly when it comes to multi-household gatherings with children.
Right now, unvaccinated Vermonters can only gather with one other unvaccinated household at a time, but vaccinated people can gather with no limitations. That means, for example, that unvaccinated kids can hug their vaccinated grandparents. But gatherings like children’s birthday parties are off limits.
“Wearing of the mask is certainly going to be present until the summer, and we’ll know more after July about that aspect,” Levine said at a press conference Tuesday. “In terms of kids being able to congregate with kids, there will be evolving guidance, but I can’t tell you yet when and how that will evolve.”
The lack of vaccinations for children also raises questions about how that age group could affect the spread of the virus, even after the majority of the population is vaccinated.
“We know kids can be infected with SARS-COV-2; we know they can transmit it,” said Dr. Tim Lahey, an infectious disease physician at the University of Vermont Medical Center. “And so we know that the vaccines can protect people from that risk, but not 100%. And so there’s a trade-off, where I think that we would probably find life unacceptable if we waited until the risk was zero.”
Kids and herd immunity
How kids affect and are affected by Vermont’s Covid restrictions may come down to the herd immunity threshold — the point at which enough of the population is immune to the virus that they are protected from further spread.
Herd immunity can come from two factors: Natural immunity from people contracting the virus, and immunity through vaccination, said State Epidemiologist Patsy Kelso. Only about 3% of Vermont’s population has been confirmed to have the disease, so most of our immunity will probably come from the vaccine.
“If a [infected] person interacts with 20 other people, if 80% of those 20 other people are immune … then those people are not going to get the infection, even if they have contact with the infected person,” Kelso said. “So it prevents them from getting it, and it prevents them from spreading it on to other people.”
She said scientists don’t yet know the herd immunity threshold for Covid, but in general, the threshold depends on how infectious the disease is.
“With something like measles that’s very infectious … you need a really high majority of a group of people,” Kelso said. “But with diseases that aren’t spread that easily, you can get away with much less of the population, perhaps even only 50% of the population being protected, to prevent further spread.”
For Covid, most estimates range between 50% to 70%. It could go even higher if more infectious variants begin to take over the original strain, she said.
According to Census data, about 16% of Vermont’s population is younger than 16. If Vermont’s adult population has a very high rate of uptake of the vaccine, around 90%, the state could hit a 75% vaccination rate without vaccinations for children.
Kelso said the state’s goal is not to hit any particular herd immunity level but “to get as many people vaccinated as are willing to be vaccinated.”
“There are always going to be susceptible people, either because they chose not to get the vaccine or because no vaccine is 100% effective in every person who gets it,” she said. “So we need to get as many Vermonters willing to be vaccinated with the safe and effective vaccines that are available, and that way, really decrease the spread within Vermont communities.”
The new normal for kids
According to the New York Times, Pfizer and Moderna are conducting trials with children 12 and older, which could deliver results in late summer. Vaccines for younger children aren’t likely until 2022.
But Vermont officials aren’t waiting to open up schools and summer programs until then. The Agency of Education has announced plans to have districts reopen to full-time, in-person schooling in April.
They’ve been buoyed by federal Centers for Disease Control guidance that has eased restrictions for in-person schooling, reducing the amount of space around each student from six feet to three feet.
Levine said the herd immunity threshold for kids “shouldn’t matter at all” for the immediate future.
“Because if we’re doing all the things that we’re supposed to be doing, as the governor’s indicated, these [masks] aren’t getting thrown away because we got a vaccine in our arms,” Levine said. “They’re all going to continue on through the spring and certainly up until July 4.”
Infectious disease expert Lahey said the state’s strategy of prioritizing schooling, but waiting to reopen more, makes sense. “We know that safety is increasing, but we’re waiting for the numbers to follow suit even more definitively … then it’s going to be sort of phased,” he said.
“There’s some stuff like small social interactions or sending kids to school, where they’re so rock bottom important that we try to get back to them ASAP,” Lahey said. “There’s other stuff, like going to a game, that — you know, it’s important, it’s good, we should get back to it soon. But you probably can wait a little bit longer.”
Elizabeth Townsend said that beyond the uncertainty over the current guidelines, she mainly wants to see a vaccine for children in order to mitigate any potential health risks.
“I just want to make sure my kids are safe,” she said. “I want them to have the vaccine, like, tomorrow.”
