A majority of parents are concerned about the Public Health Ministry's green light for children aged 5-11 to be vaccinated against Covid-19, saying they are not certain about the quality of vaccines and their side-effects, according to the result of a survey by Suan Dusit Rajabhat University or Suan Dusit Poll.
Most parents also doubt online learning is effective for their children's education, the poll found.
The opinion survey was conducted online on Feb 7-10 on 1,089 parents whose children are attending schools throughout the country to compile their opinions about their kids being made to study online and the government's push for children aged 5-11 to get Covid jabs.
A majority, 66.85%, of the parents said they doubted the efficacy of online learning for their children, with 55.52% saying they had little confidence it was effective and 11.33% not confident at all.
On the other side, 27.02% said they were fairly confident online learning is effective, while 6.13 were very confident.
Asked about the decision to give Covid vaccines to children aged 5-11, 45.54% were dubious and another 30.82% very concerned. On the other side, only 19.50% said they weren't particularly worried about it and just 4.14% had no concerns at all.
Asked what worried them about kids getting jabs -- with each respondent allowed to give more than one answer -- 72.72% said they were concerned about the quality of vaccines; 68.29% were concerned about side-effects in the long run; and 67.83% worried about side-effects occurring immediately after receiving a jab.