Oakland, CA – On November 3, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) approved the Pfizer vaccine for children 5-11. The dose is 1/3 the amount of the adult dose. According to the White House, more than one million children have gotten the Pfizer-BioNTEch COVID-19 vaccine. Tennessee received 200,000 doses and across the state more than 10,000 kids have gotten the jab.
“I was nervous and scared because I don’t like shots but I also really wanted it because I wanted to see my friends,” said Joaquin Khokha Kaku, a 4th grader, in Oakland, California. He said the shot didn’t hurt. His sibling, Amar, in 5thgrade, reported they were initially scared to get the shot.
“I thought it would be like a knife but instead it was like a pinch,” Amar said. They went for tacos afterwards.
Dr. Monica Gandhi, a Professor of Medicine at UC San Francisco School of Medicine, said Pfizer released the results of the children’s trial on September 20. Researchers wanted to know how safe the vaccine was and how effective it was at preventing severe symptoms of coronavirus. Of the 2,068 children in the trial, 1100 got a placebo and 1100 got the vaccine.
“There were no safety concerns and beyond that there was enhanced antibody responses in those who got the vaccine,” Gandhi said. A handful of children developed symptomatic infections, enough for researchers to conclude that the vaccine reduced symptomatic infection by 90.7%.
During the Delta surge there were increased infections and deaths among children. “Children should be vaccinated for their own benefit,” Gandhi said. During the Delta surge, coronavirus was the 8th leading cause of death among children in the U.S.. And the increased deaths and hospitalization among children happened in places with low vaccination rates.
Gandhi said that kids should also get vaccinated because it reduces transmission to others.
“We all live in communities and we live with older parents and grandparents and that is an absolutely acceptable reason, as long as the vaccine is safe, to vaccinate children,” she said.
Twenty-eight million children are between 5-11 in the U.S. Gandhi said that the adult vaccination rate of 60% is not what officials had hoped for, so getting more children vaccinated will help control the pandemic.
“I’m seeing a wide variety of things,” said Dr. Jennifer Miller, a veteran pediatrician in Oakland who mentors medical students and residents. “Parents started beating my door down,” she said. “They were very excited to be able to come in. Kids are never excited to get vaccines and now kids were excited to get vaccinated,” she said.
Miller’s patients fall into two groups Many families are eagerly awaiting the shot. They can’t wait to resume some semblance of normalcy in their lives and not worry about isolating or quarantine.
“They could be able to spend full time at school and not worry about getting sick. Families could talk about traveling together as the holidays come. And so one group of parents were very eager,” Miller said.
She said another group, mostly people of color but not exclusively so, took a pause.
“They were interested in waiting and seeing,” she said. “They would say ‘I’m vaccinated. I believe in science but “m afraid to get my children vaccinated. I’m afraid there may be longer term consequences that I don’t even know about and I’m afraid to have the power to make that decision. I’m afraid there may be an effect on their fertility if we give the vaccine to children’.”
But all the data indicate the vaccine has no effect on fertility. “This is a great vaccine. It does not change the DNA and doesn’t affect the fertility of our patients,” Miller said.
Other parents told Miller they were worried about myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart. Coronavirus can cause myocarditis and patients who were vaccinated and got it, generally had mild cases that went away on their own and there were no long term consequences.
Miller is more concerned about the second group because she has seen high numbers of suicidality, depression, and anxiety since the pandemic began in March 2020. Children have been removed from everything that they know is normal like schoolwork, their peers, sports, their clubs, activities—and a lot of kids are depressed.
“They’re worried because they have lost family member to COVID, they’re sad, they’re depressed because they can’t be around their friends and we hoped that once school started the depression and anxiety would get better and it has, a little bit, but there’s still a very large number of patients who are suffering from depression and anxiety.”
Miller said those children need to get back into school fulltime. If parents don’t vaccinate their children, she is worried we will continue to see a mental health crisis along with the pandemic. And if parents keep them out of school, things will not return to normal and the educational disparity COVID has caused will only widen.
“Kids do get COVID. We have over 6 million cases of COVID in the U.S. Thousands of kids were hospitalized for COVID and many were in intensive care, and hundreds of kids did die from COVID.”
Miller said that when children catch COVID it’s usually not as severe as when adults do but it’s not nothing.
“A decision not to get the vaccine is a decision to get the virus. It’s not going anywhere and you’re going to get it and the hope is if you get vaccinated your disease is going to be more mild. You’re not going to be hospitalized. You’re not going to be at as much risk for death. We know that this vaccine prevents serious illness in kids just like it does in adults.”
