The coronavirus is currently spreading rapidly, especially among children and adolescents.
Nevertheless, the European Medicines Agency Ema does not want to make a decision on the vaccine until December, the Standing Vaccination Commission at the Robert Koch Institute (Stiko) wants to take even more time - and frankly: It is a mystery to me why it is so difficult for the experts in Europe to to endorse the judgment of their respected US counterparts.
How often do you have to gain new fundamental knowledge in order to weigh harm and benefit?
Is it sensible to procrastinate while the pandemic becomes more vehement again and more and more children are infected?
My colleagues Veronika Hackenbroch and Kerstin Kullmann report in SPIEGEL this week about the background to the annoyance, which is why it takes so long to obtain vaccine approval for children. I strongly recommend reading it. One thing is clear: No licensing authority should even begin to be suspected of making light-hearted or rash decisions on this issue. If that happens, it endangers vaccination readiness. In the United States, the vaccine is now available for children aged five and over - but only 27 percent of parents are willing to have their children immunized quickly. Thirty percent apparently prefer their child to get sick, although the side effects of infection far exceed those of the vaccine, for all we know. The hope of some parentstheir children could somehow magically escape this virus is unrealistic.
Sincerely,
Marco Evers
I also recommend you:
Climate crisis:
"It's not the politicians, it's the people who prevent change".
This is what the physicist Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker, one of the pioneers of German environmental policy, says.
For more than 30 years he has been calling for more climate protection - is he slowly losing patience?
Denmark:
No more masks, no corona passport, no more gaps.
Our northern neighbor has stopped all measures against Corona.
Here the top epidemiologist Lone Simonsen tells what Germany can learn from it.
Space travel:
The dwarf state of Liechtenstein wants to work with China to build a huge satellite fleet that will enable faster internet and autonomous driving.
A German company is also involved in the deal.
Critics, however, warn against abuse by the People's Army.
Climate conference:
When oil companies plant trees, it sounds like environmental protection.
But often this is pure greenwashing.
Stricter rules are now to be agreed in Glasgow.
But key countries are fighting back.
Psychiatry:
America's Craziest Family. Six siblings at the Colorado Springs Galvins suffered from schizophrenia, but the family led a reasonably normal life - and even became a subject of research.
Animals:
In the Netherlands, a walrus from the polar region fell asleep on a walrus-class submarine - and yes, that too has something to do with climate change.
Picture of the week
Rocket science in the night sky, alien invasion?
No, just physics.
The sunspot AR2887 on our central star was the scene of violent eruptions.
The result: A particularly large number of energetic particles - protons and electrons - race towards the earth.
After around 18 hours, they hit the planet's magnetic field, where they are whirled around and move towards the pole.
They rumble against each other with earth's own atoms, such as oxygen and nitrogen, producing a magical veil of light that appears to be made of ribbons and threads at an altitude of around 100 kilometers.
The northern lights can be seen mainly in the polar region, as in the photo in northern Russia, but in particularly violent solar storms in rare cases also over Germany.
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