Continue our coverage in
vaccinating kids against cover.
19 children five years and older are
now eligible to get the Pfizer vaccine.
Distribution has already
begun around EU S but parents.
Of course they'll have a lot of
questions about the COVID-19 vaccine,
so joining us right now as
Doctor Stanley Spinner Spinner.
Rather, he is the chief medical
officer at Texas Children's Pediatrics
and Texas Children's urgent care.
He is ready to answer all your
questions and thank you Doctor Spinner
for taking the time to talk with us.
This morning, good morning,
thank you and first and foremost,
the question is about availability.
I know a couple of parents who are
not able to set up appointments
to get their children vaccinated.
So what's your parents know and what
do they need to do right now if they
want to get their children vaccinated?
Well, so we're working hard.
It's certainly in Austin for our specialty
center through Texas children to make
more appointments available available,
we are scheduling Tuesdays,
Wednesdays and Thursdays,
Tuesdays and Thursdays in two I believe.
7:00 PM in the evening,
but I know that those slots
are being rapidly filled.
It's a great problem to have because
we are excited that that many
families are wanting to get their
kids protected as quickly as possible.
Will continue to add slots at Texas,
you know at the Specialty Center,
but you know,
working with the community in Austin,
certainly.
I would encourage families to look
for other opportunities if those
spots are not available at the
specialty center of Texas children
that they could get their kids
vaccinated through other entities
throughout the Austin area.
The goal is to get kids vaccinated.
Who gives the vaccine is not as
important as the kids getting
those vaccines as soon as they can
sure absolutely. And of course,
parents are concerned about
these brand new vaccines.
Talk about the risk associated with
the COVID vaccine for children.
Well, when it comes to the risk,
I mean this the studies that were done
on over 2000 children in this age
group really showed you know very,
very mild and transient side effects.
You know, soreness at the injection site,
fever, low grade fevers, you know,
very mild symptoms we have not seen
any anything to have any concern
in the studies of these kids.
And when you look at the
you know adolescents.
Now that over 10 million doses have been
giving it certainly adults hundreds of
millions of doses being given of the.
Pfizer COVID vaccine.
We continue to see an incredible
safety profile with extremely
extremely low numbers of any types
of side effects of consequence.
Unfortunately,
a lot of the information out
there about significant side
effects is just misrepresented.
We also understand the the the
effectiveness of the vaccine.
It has been amazingly effective in adults.
Amazingly effective in adolescence and the
studies show the Pfizer vaccine in our
in the pediatric population to be also,
you know, very, very effective,
over 90% effective.
I, I think the big issue is for
parents understand is that children.
This is not a benign disease for children,
and so that's certainly something that
there's been a lot of confusion about.
You know the COBRA is really more
of a of a concern for adults,
but kids have generally,
been, you know,
spared and and early last year
I think the kids were at home.
A lot of mitigating circumstances
homeschool everyone wearing masks.
We didn't see much of a
pediatric infection issue,
but this year now the kids are
back in school.
Masks have come off in many areas.
We have seen a surge in the
number of infections in children
and it's pretty much now.
Pediatric COVID is probably the third
leading cause of death in children.
Believe it or not,
even though it's a small number.
You know behind cancer and heart disease.
We've lost Dome with 600 children to
COVID and well over 20,000 hospitalized.
So for even healthy kids it could be a very,
very serious infection.
And certainly something parents need
to really appreciate the importance
of protecting their their children.
As of death, that is alarming.
Statistic all right?
I like that we underlined that doctors,
spinner, doctors and other medical
experts are recommending children.
Get the flu shot right now so doctor Spinner.
What is the guidance on the
time line between the shots,
the flu shot and the COVID-19 shot?
Well, you can get both the COVID vaccine
and the flu vaccine at the same time.
There is no restrictions on the timing of it,
so if someone has gotten their flu
shot yesterday and they can get their
COVID vaccine today or or vice versa,
or they can get their COVID vaccine
today and their flu vaccine tomorrow,
so absolutely no issues there.
So if you are able to get
both at that one visit,
I certainly would recommend it.
But if that's not the case, again,
get your flu shot when you can get
your COVID vaccine when you can.
You know we're seeing extremely
low low incidence of flu so far,
but generally we would expect to see
more flu as we get into the winter.
Last year was a true operation.
We saw virtually no flu.
We don't expect that this year we we,
we do worry that we will be seeing
flu and we understand that the flu
vaccine can really help to minimize
the the severity of the flu.
Certainly,
so it's very important that we
try to protect all of us from,
you know,
with the flu vaccine as well
as with the COVID vaccine.
Your time this morning.
Thank you so much.
Now we know you have more
questions about this vaccine,
so join us Wednesday,
November 10th for verified Kids
and COVID-19 as we continue to
gather more answers for you,
join us on The Cave you.com The
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