As more and more people get vaccinated, there seems to be light at the end of the COVID tunnel. Pfizer and Moderna are releasing their vaccine to children under 16, who make up 26% of the world’s population. The COVID vaccine is supposed to protect you from contracting COVID and lessen the symptoms of it. But, it’s up to the parents if their child will be receiving the vaccine, and Liam Stoyer won’t be one of the many teens being vaccinated.

“The odds of my child getting the vaccine will relate to how vaccinations are enforced,” says Stoyer’s mother.

Karen Moloney, a nurse at Memorial Regional Hospital, disagrees and has a different perspective on the vaccine. She has had firsthand experience with the common annual vaccines kids get, but not with the COVID vaccine.

“The world has been very successful with children’s vaccinations,” she says. ““I have also noticed that when children come to the emergency room that haven’t been vaccinated with previously approved vaccines, they tend to be a lot sicker than the kids that have been given their annual vaccines.”

The main reason Stoyer is apprehensive about her child receiving the vaccine is due to vaccine mishandling. A friend of hers, who is a healthcare worker, claims to have seen doses being mishandled and transported incorrectly. These claims are causing her to have doubts with whether or not her son, Liam, should get the vaccine.

“I have first hand information that vaccine doses are being mishandled,” says Stoyer. “A healthcare worker I know has seen firsthand doses being transported incorrectly and double and triple dosing people in one day due to clerical error or malpractice.”

With Moloney having no regard to doses being mishandled, she still strongly stands by her opinion that everyone should get vaccinated when the time comes.

“I believe a healthy child under 16 should have a strong enough immune system that the vaccine should be safe,” says Maloney. “I think it’s important that as soon as it is proven safe, everyone should be vaccinated.”