Hey thanks so much for
joining us here our 90s plus
I'm Chris Bianchi, joined by our
Nine News medical expert Doctor Paul
Coldy for a look specifically at
vaccinations for children under 5.
So you mentioned that the data is
showing that it's highly effective.
Could you get into more details about the
data? Yeah, so let's talk about it.
Two different vaccines,
adarna and fizer, and they're designed
a little bit differently here.
So the majority of vaccine is 25 micrograms,
which is 1/4 of the adult dose.
Given three weeks apart, and it actually.
Doesn't have as good
efficacy as the other one,
so with that regimen in the older kids,
the ones two to five you have about
a 37% protection and then the
younger kids six months to two years
you have about a 50% protection.
So pretty good,
but kind of like the flu shot.
Not great, not what we were saying
with the original vaccines,
especially in the adults,
but we do see that that immune
response is boosted.
So the reason we feel like the protection
is not as good because they looked
at Omicron and the vaccines really
designed against the original variant.
We know Omicron Ovates our immune system.
Better, but still pretty good efficacy.
You know,
one out of three protection younger kids,
one out of two protection and
older the Pfizer one is different.
That's a 3 microgram dose.
So it's a tenth of the adult dose.
You get it.
You get it at day zero,
then you get it again three weeks later.
And then you actually get
another shot 8 weeks later.
So it's a 3 dose regimen for our kids because
they found out that two wasn't enough.
In fact,
two really wasn't protecting and
causing an antibody response,
so parents really have to be aware that
that third dose is not a booster dose.
But it's actually part of the
full vaccination series,
and with those three doses,
you have pretty good protection.
About 80% plus or minus two,
3% for kids across the board,
so 3 doses for visor for Pfizer.
With that in mind, based on the data,
are there you mentioned?
It seems safe, but are there any
known risks or concerns at this
point? Yeah, so about one out of
four kids had a fever so kids can
have a little more fever than adults.
Sometimes muscle aches and pains
and fatigue the arm reactions.
You know soreness at the site,
but really thankfully with neither vaccine
any signs of pericarditis or myocarditis,
especially that heart inflammation
that we worried so much about
in our young adolescent boys.
We are not seeing that in
this younger age group now.
The small little grain of salt
with everything is that thankfully
there were a few cases,
but there were very few cases
of COVID and altogether.
So when you start doing something
on a population level,
that's when they're really rare.
Signals can start to amplify,
but based on what we've seen so far,
I feel comfortable.
Saying that,
you know it's a safe vaccine and
that it's effective as well.
And ask you, admittedly a tricky question
here, but I think it's one that a lot of
parents may want to ask about this as we,
I think at this point,
and correct me if I'm wrong.
Know that COVID tends to affect
kids less than adults.
With that in mind, and again,
admittedly a tricky question
asking this on behalf of parents
that may have this question.
Why vaccinate if again
COVID may affect kids loss?
Great question.
I think it's on every parent's mind.
I have no doubt in my mind if I had
a child and for my nephew I'm going
to get them vaccinated and there's
many reasons for that. Number one.
It's almost like a deposit into
their immune system Savings Bank.
So every time you give them a vaccine,
you actually boost their immunity
against other respiratory infections too,
but it also helps kind of flex
their immune systems muscle.
So that's number 1 #2.
There may be evidence and
we don't yet know this,
but it's starting to emerge that by
vaccinating and preventing infection
you're they're less likely to
develop any kind of complications
of the virus or long COVID.
Which we know is affecting kids as well,
so that's the other reason.
You're you're investing in their
immune system Savings Bank.
You're preventing acute complications
keeping them out of school disruption to
your life long COVID those types of things,
and then you're actually helping
in our entire fight against COVID
because we know that even though
kids may not get as sick,
they definitely transmit the infection,
and it's important if we keep
transmitting the infection and
this big portion of the population
doesn't get vaccinated that that
infection is going to keep spreading,
and that next variant may actually
evade the vaccines.
OK, so those are a couple of good
reasons. Did I convince you?
And certainly I mean again, I
think a lot of questions.
Yeah, be caring for parents that
and again to kind of reiterate,
there are also at this point
none of the myocarditis concerns
that we had with some of the
young adolescent boys, right?
We are not seeing that signal at all now.
We'll do very close monitoring,
of course as it launches,
but your risk of getting myocarditis Chris
from the virus is actually much higher than
your risk of getting it from the vaccine.
So if you're in Vegas or you're
playing the statistical odds,
it is much better.
To actually take the vaccine,
protect your child against the infection
than it is to roll the dice on that.
And we also know that the vaccine,
even if it doesn't protect
against symptomatic infection,
because they may be saying all 30 percent,
50%. That's not that good.
It'll make the infection less severe.
It'll make your child less
likely to end up in the hospital,
and it also making them less likely to
have those complications of long COVID.
Do we know? Does this give less of
a chance of a child between the ages
of six months and five years old?
Does it reduce their chances
of getting the virus overall?
Yes, that's the efficacy
numbers I talked about.
So if you get Pfizer,
there's an 80% reduction
in symptomatic infection,
and if you get Madonna,
it's somewhere between 37 to
50 depending on the age of the
child I I'm still figuring something.
I'm still I'm throwing a lot of
numbers at you. Yeah, I'm still
figuring it out. Any final thoughts?
Anything else that you
think sticks out about this?
I think one thing we've learned in
the last couple years, especially
when it comes to infectious disease.
The best way we can protect ourselves is
to get our immune system and best shape,
and that means giving it
all the tools that it can.
Vaccinations, save lives,
vaccinations eradicate disease,
and I think this epidemic has taught
us that being vaccinated has allowed
us to get our lives back to normal.
For many of us,
whereas we were in a whole different
position two years ago before the vaccine.
So I think we should celebrate the science.
We should embrace it,
and we should use it to help
our children be healthy and help
our lives get back to normal.
Well, we celebrate you, Doctor Pyle.
Colli, our Nine News medical expert.
Thanks so much for a detailed
look here at under 5 year old
children's vaccinations was again.
Seem right around the corner.
We appreciate if you miss
your time here. Doctor
Cohen. Thank you.