While America panics, Europe quietly recalibrates Covid-19 vaccine policy
From Sweden to the UK to Australia, countries are narrowing Covid-19 vaccine policies without controversy. In the US, the same debate has triggered warnings of a catastrophe.
As of 1 September, Sweden no longer recommends Covid-19 vaccination for children unless an individual medical assessment finds they are at increased risk of severe disease.
Even then, it is only available with a doctor’s prescription.
Adults are eligible for a single dose only if they are 75 and older, or belong to defined risk groups.
It is a strikingly cautious policy — yet in Sweden, there is no sense of crisis. Public health officials describe it as a proportionate step, aligned with the evidence.
By contrast, in the United States, the temperature has been rising over the narrowing of Covid-19 vaccine policy. The medical establishment has long been hostile toward Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr, but in recent weeks the attacks have escalated.
This week in the New York Times, nine former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned that his decisions mean “children risk losing access to lifesaving vaccines.”
On ABC TV, outgoing CDC official Dr Demetre Daskalakis intensified the rhetoric, claiming he “only sees harm coming” for America’s children. The language was deliberately alarming and intended to signal an emerging catastrophe.
In reality, though, the policies under review in the US look more like a belated effort to bring American practice closer to what Europe has already done.
The CDC’s own data illustrate why recalibration makes sense.