Here's what to do with your child's vaccine

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Here's what to do with your child's vaccine

CNN Schools are in session Covid - 19 restrictions are being relaxed en masse and the Delta variant is raging worldwide, creating maelstrom of confusion for parents on how to best protect their unvaccinated children.

Data from earlier in the pandemic showed that ill children are less likely to become seriously ill. The first Delta variant was a game changer however, destroying the myth that healthy kids can't get hit hard by the virus.

While many wealthy nations, including the United States and most members of the European Union, now offer Covid vaccination for children 12 and older, a handful of countries have now authorized the shot for younger people. Meanwhile, severe vaccine inequality persists on a global level with many developing nations still battling to provide first and second doses to high-risk groups - with the very idea of getting shots to children still a pipe dream.

Where children are being vaccinated under 12 year old, the best places to look for your child include: Children under 12 must be vaccinated.

Throughout the Pandemic, most in-person classes have been suspended in Cuba. Instead, students have been learning educational television programming as home internet remains a rarity on the island.

Cuba yet to provide data on its vaccines to outside observers, but has said it will seek World Health Organization approval on Thursday.

Meanwhile, children between 5 and 11 year old could be eligible for the vaccine sometime this fall, pending approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. She said that Pfizer's CEO tells shareholders they plan to submit data from study of the vaccine by the end of this month.

Where governments are still weighing up what to do with young children

The United Kingdom is more cautious than many other European countries in regards to vaccination of younger populations, recommending only the shot for 12 - 15 year olds on Monday following advice from its chief medical officers. The move ended months of debate among scientists and government and places it in line with the US and many other European countries that have been vaccinating this age group for months.

In late May, the European Medicines Agency EMA approved the use of Pfizer BioNtech's vaccine for children aged 12-15 based on a study that showed that the immune response to the vaccine in that age group was comparable to the immune response seen in people from 16-25. The EMA approved the Moderna vaccine in late July for 12 - 15 year olds.

France, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland are among EU countries that have rolled out their vaccination campaigns for 12 years olds - 14 years with uptake varying across the bloc.

Switzerland - which is not part of the EU - has been vaccinating the older age group since June. Sweden will offer the vaccine to 12 - 15 year-olds later in the fall, Premier Minister Stefan Lofven said Thursday.

In the UK, however, there are not current plans to vaccinate children under 12 according to Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer.

The current guidelines for 13-year-olds were put forward in the hope that they would reduce the spread of the virus in schools, Whitty said. However, he noted that vaccines aren't the silver bullet and that policies to reduce transmission should remain in place. For now, the youths will only get one vaccine shot.

The new guidance also reinvigorated a debate on consent in the UK, especially when parents and children disagree. While parents in Britain generally need to authorize vaccination for children under 16 years old, children can overrule vaccine hesitant parents if a clinician considers them competent to do so.

Where vaccinating is not an option for the group under 12 months because the doses aren't enough.

Haiti had only received its first vaccines in July, with the delivery of 500,000 doses donated by the US through the COVAX vaccine-sharing program. More than 1% of the country's 11.4 million people - of whom nearly one third are over the age of 14 - have been vaccinated so far.

In May, when some low-income countries began vaccinating children and other low-risk groups, World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said they were doing so at the expense of health workers and other high-risk groups in other countries. Where vaccinations for children could be difficult to roll out it is usually not affordable or non-existent in india.

While no countries have yet categorically ruled out inoculating young children, vaccine hesitancy among policy makers could play a role in countries apparently uncertain about doing so.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, just over 120,000 doses have been administered - keeping less than 0.1% of the population of 90 million protected. On Wednesday, the USA purchased 250,000 doses of Moderna vaccine donated by COVAX by the US. Approximately 250,000 new Pfizer doses will follow soon.

More than 1.7 million AstraZeneca doses arrived in Kinshasa on March 30 but the government delayed the rollout after reports of rare blood clots and then exported about 75% of the shipment.

On Monday, after waiting six months, DRC president Flix Tshisekedi got vaccinated, after his first dose of the Moderna shot that by this act I want to show my compatriots that it is really necessary to take the vaccine and not necessary to worry. He added that his wife had also taken the vaccine and then urged others to do so, because it saves lives. The change in messaging could leave public health officials hopeful for getting more shots in arms in the months ahead. How that will play out in terms of vaccination for children remains unclear in a country where misinformation on vaccines is rampant and where earlier this year, around 70% of healthcare workers said they would not get the shot.