A COVID-19 vaccine has finally arrived for children ages 5 to 11 – and with it, some important questions from parents.
Many are wondering about safety, said Dr. Donna Curtis, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital Colorado in Aurora. Others are asking whether the coronavirus is enough of a threat to their child to require a vaccine.
Here are answers that might help.
What is the vaccine, and where can I get it?
It's one-third of the dose of the Pfizer vaccine that has been given to adults since December 2020 and adolescents 12 and up since May. Tens of millions of Americans have received Pfizer's vaccine, and it's considered very safe.
Data presented to the Food and Drug Administration showed the new dose was 90.7% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in 5- to 11-year-olds.
The vaccine is being distributed through pediatricians, pharmacies and others, with plans to scale up to full capacity starting Nov. 8, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention news release. Locations are listed at vaccines.gov. As with adults and adolescents, young children will need a second dose three weeks later.
Does my child even need a vaccine for COVID-19?
"We don't think of children as the highest-risk group," said Curtis, who has done research on vaccines in immunocompromised children. However, according to data reviewed by the CDC's advisory panel on vaccines, as of Oct. 10, almost 2 million 5- to 11-year-olds have gotten ill from COVID-19, and 94 have died.
COVID-19 also has been linked to multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, a condition that causes swelling of the heart, brain and other organs. As of early October, more than 5,200 children had been diagnosed with MIS-C, and 46 died, according to CDC data.
A vaccine goes beyond giving protection to the child who receives it, Curtis said. It can stop the spread of the disease to nearby children and family members, some of whom might have conditions that put them at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19. Those conditions include obesity, diabetes, weakened immune systems and congenital heart defects.
The chance that a child will develop severe COVID-19 that requires hospitalization or develop MIS-C remains low, "but still the risk is too high and too devastating to our children, and far higher than for many other diseases for which we vaccinate children," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky told the agency's advisory panel before it reviewed safety data on Tuesday.
What are possible side effects from the vaccine?
Common side effects include pain, redness and swelling at the injection site. Some children had fevers, fatigue, body aches, headaches, chills or swollen lymph nodes – similar to what happens in adults.
Among the 3,109 children in the clinical trial that evaluated the Pfizer vaccine in this age group, there were no serious side effects, the FDA said in granting emergency use authorization.
What about the risk of heart issues, such as myocarditis and pericarditis?
Although no cases were seen in the clinical trial, myocarditis and pericarditis – swelling of the heart muscle or its lining – has been a rare side effect in other groups, particularly in adolescent and young men who got the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.
That problem affected a small percentage of people who were vaccinated, Curtis said. The FDA used statistical modeling to predict the risks of heart inflammation in 5- to 11-year-olds and concluded the overall benefits of getting vaccinated far outweighed the risk.
As a parent, Curtis said she understands heart inflammation sounds scary. "But generally, these are mild to moderate illnesses," she said. Patients are hospitalized, given ibuprofen or a similar drug, and go home in a few days, generally with no long-term issues.
The risk of myocarditis from COVID-19 itself, she said, is much higher.
My child already had COVID-19. Is vaccination still needed?
"The recommendation is yes," Curtis said. Immunity can wane with time. "We hear about it more when we talk about vaccines, but we've seen the exact thing with coronavirus infection." A vac...
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