Jordan pushes child vaccinations to fight COVID-19 surge

With health authorities officially declaring the kingdom as entering a third wave of COVID-19, the government late on Sunday said that children and young people would be asked to take the coronavirus vaccine — but “voluntarily” provided that their parents gave informed consent.

In a statement seen by Arab News, State Minister for Media Affairs Faisal Shboul said that all adults over 18 would be encouraged to get booster doses, especially those over the age of 50.

Preferring anonymity, an official source told Arab News that a new nationwide lockdown was “not an option at all, at least for the time being.”

Jordan has had an upsurge in infections over the past weeks.

Speaking to Jordan TV on Sunday, Secretary General of the Health Ministry for Epidemics Adel Bilbeisi said that Jordan has entered a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic after weekly infections reached 20,000 cases, marking an increase of 5,000 infections compared with the week before.

Bilbeisi said that hospitals’ capacity for treating COVID-19 patients was still within “comfortable levels,” adding that the occupancy percentage of ICU, isolation and ventilator beds did not exceed 30 percent.

Fourteen COVID-19 deaths and 3,579 virus cases were recorded in Jordan on Sunday, increasing the caseload to 914,849, according to the government tally. The new fatalities took the Kingdom’s coronavirus death toll to 11,361.

Of the Kingdom’s 10 million population, 3,674,761 people were fully vaccinated, according to official figures.