123 ready Pfizer and biontech have asked
US health regulators to authorize their Covid 19 vaccine for Children 5 to 11 years
old.
The FDA make clear the shot for use in that age group before november,
which could mean pediatrician offices,
schools and pharmacies are able to begin distributing doses between Halloween and thanksgiving.
This news is welcomed by many parents of vaccine ineligible Children who have watched
nervously as schools reopened and pediatric COVID-19 cases rose fueled by the
highly contagious delta variant.
In the first week of october,
there were nearly 150,000 new child Covid 19 cases reported in the US,
which accounted for almost a quarter of total new cases reported nationwide.
Public health experts say vaccinating Children is crucial to protecting them from infection and
achieving community wide immunity.
But the percentage of vaccine eligible Children who are fully vaccinated lags behind adults.
Many parents of Children who are still ineligible say they will vaccinate their Children as soon as the
shot is authorized.
But other parents are hesitant sometimes,
even when they've been vaccinated themselves.
If I would do it to myself,
why isn't it good enough for my daughter?
But then you kind of bring in all of those parental aspects of wanting to protect them and do the
right thing and possible guilt if there's vaccine injury and all of the unknowns
and you just get kind of thrown back into this whirlwind of oh my gosh,
what is the right decision here?
A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that if authorized,
34% of parents said they'd vaccinate their 5 to 11 year old kids right away while
32% said they would wait and see.
I do think that maybe not being the first in line and allowing
other Children to go first who want to be first in line.
You know,
once vaccines are given to a mass population will um,
than probably have a lot more real life data on how it affects our Children.
I think it's an incredibly natural human instinct
to protect our Children.
And I think sometimes in things that there are questions or if there's
unknowns,
it's a little bit easier for us to take that risk with ourselves than it
is with our with our babies with our Children.
I think it's important to remember that there are many,
many known risks to covid infections.
The risks of vaccines are far more theoretical.
Kathy who is vaccinated,
says she'd like to see more data from the trials before coming to a decision on vaccinating her
eight year old daughter.
I believe in science.
I believe that the facts are there.
Um,
I do however,
wish that the data from the trials was more
more available to the public and also sort of in layman's terms as opposed to
being hard data to process and really store it through yourself with the potential
authorization of Pfizer's vaccine and younger Children on the horizon.
Pediatricians across the country are working to share information about the vaccine with parents.
One challenge,
they say,
is that the public health message over the last year has been that kids usually don't get very sick from the
virus.
Dr Gamble says there are three main points that she tries to hit during conversations with
families.
The first thing to remember is that we know the vaccine works from studies in adults.
We know that the vaccine helps prevent disease and we also know that vaccinated individuals
that do catch covid are far less likely to suffer from severe complications or
to die.
I have every reason to believe that the vaccine will be just as effective in kids.
The second reason is that we know Children spread the virus that
causes Covid 19 disease,
even Children that have no symptoms can spread Covid 19 and the vaccine
helps decrease the spread.
The third consideration is really thinking about the broader impact that this
pandemic has had on kids,
mental health and well being.
Every single day I'm seeing the physical and emotional manifestations of chronic
stress on our Children.
Pediatricians say a common question they hear from parents is about the possibility of unknown long
term side effects from the vaccine because it's new.
That's not a question that I haven't heard before.
The pneumococcal vaccine,
the vaccine to prevent Hemophilus influenza type B,
chickenpox vaccine where all vaccines that I've seen developed in my career and those
questions came up before and the answer today is what it was
then The studies that we've done to look at this vaccine has shown that it is
safe and there's no expectation of anything happening long term with those other three
vaccines.
That has proven to be true.
The population of Children that I'm actually immunizing now are the
Children of those people that I immunized for the first time with some of those
particular vaccines.
And so I can point to them when I see that mother that I took care of as a child and
say you you came out okay.
Dr patterson says he's also worked to a life specific concerns about fertility,
myocarditis and pericarditis by sharing data and research with families
continuing to help them understand how the science is
paying attention to side effects,
how we are capturing potential problem areas and how we
are really making a difference in the outcome that people are having.
Those are some of the ways to convince or encourage those who take the wait and see
approach that now is the time.
Should the FDA green light the vaccine for young Children,
they would get to injections three weeks apart like adolescents and adults.
But at a lower dosage after the authorization.
In 5 to 11 year olds,
the only group left awaiting vaccines will be Children as young as six months.
Pfizer has said that results from a study in younger Children Ages six months to under five
years could come towards the end of 2021