In the light of the fact that the majority of children in our country have recovered from Covid and on an average 56% of them have antibodies without developing serious disease, there is no scientific basis to expect children to be more affected in the 3rd wave and policies should be framed accordingly. AIIMS Director, Dr Randeep Guleria and The Indian Academy of Paediatrics have given statements to this effect. (1, 2)
Sri Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister for Health and Family Welfare, in an answer to Lok Sabha on 23rd July 2021 said, “There is however no scientific evidence either from India or globally, to show that children get disproportionately infected with Covid-19 including delta variant. Children, if infected, generally remain asymptomatic or exhibit mild symptoms and do not get severe disease."
http://164.100.47.193/Loksabha/Questions/QResult15.aspx?qref=24892&lsno=17
So why is there a push to vaccinate children despite there being no threat to them and plenty of evidence in favour of naturally acquired immunity?
Experts have confirmed that Letting children catch Covid may be safer than giving them
vaccines. Allowing children to catch Covid may be better than exposing them to the "risk" of vaccines, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (UK) has said. (3)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/06/20/jvci-scientists-left-dark-whether-children-will-offered-covid
"There is no scientific evidence that any wave would affect children disproportionately," said epidemiologist Dr Chandrakant Lahariya in a panel discussion on CNBC-TV18. He was responding to NIDM and others unnecessarily creating a scare. “Children do not need to take vaccine shot to go to school," he said. (4)
The same view has been reiterated by experts in Government arranged programs, opined in public forums and when asked by the press. (5, 6, 7)
Latest preprint study of eminent Stanford epidemiologist, Dr John Ioannidis, representing 14 countries, points to a survival rate of 99.9973% up to the age of 19. (8)
Considering that children get very mild disease, scarce resources would be better utilized for providing Wholesome Nutrition for children. “In our country, 2,200 children die of malnutrition every day. As per information available till now, Covid-19 does not make children severely ill. Even today, I do not think you will find so many children dying of Covid-19 in a month [as they do of malnutrition]. In a nutshell, I can say Covid-19 remains a very mild disease for children.” Dr Sanjay Rai, AIIMS.
https://thewire.in/health/in-2018-more-than-14-indian-children-died-every-hour-due-to-pneumonia-un-study
https://www.newsclick.in/difficult-predict-how-many-waves-Covid-19-india-vaccine-specialist-sanjay-rai