Can My Child Get A Covid
Yes, if he or she is age 12 or older. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control have granted emergency use authorization for several COVID-19 vaccines The EUA means that these organizations have reviewed clinical trials data and determined that the vaccine is safe and effective. Currently, the Pfizer COVID-19 is authorized for use in kids ages 12 to 15.
Current safety and efficacy testing of the vaccines for children ages 2 and up may lead to authorization of one or more of the COVID-19 vaccines for younger kids in the months ahead.
Does The Vaccine Protect Against Variants Of The Virus
One of the best things about the vaccines is that they generate good protection against many of the variants. That’s important because natural infection with an older virus does not provide really great protection against the variants. We’re seeing people who were previously infected, usually several months earlier, get infected with the new variants and sometimes have pretty significant illnesses. That’s one huge advantage of the vaccines over natural infection.
Will Getting The Covid
Yes. Vaccines, along with mask-wearing, physical distancing and other precautions will help ensure your childs safe return to school, sports and other group activities in the future. The goal of prevention measures such as mask wearing and getting eligible children vaccinated is to help keep children healthy, in school and participating in their activities, Dr. Sick-Samuels says.
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Is The Vaccine Safe For Young People
I realize that not every parent is initially comfortable with the idea of getting a COVID vaccine for teenagers. Ive spent a lot of time looking at the data that was just presented to the Food and Drug Administration. I can say that this really is clearly a safe and effective vaccine. Everyone in my family has been vaccinated thats how confident I am about it.
What Is Herd Immunity
If enough people in your community are immunized against a certain disease, you can reach something called herd immunity. When this happens, diseases cant spread easily from person to person because most people are immune. This provides a layer of protection against the disease even for those who cannot be vaccinated, such as infants.
Herd immunity also prevents outbreaks by making it difficult for the disease to spread. The disease will become more and more rare, sometimes even disappearing entirely from the community.
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Where Can My Teenager Get A Booster Shot
Teens ages 16 and up can get a booster now, according to new CDC guidance. Because Pfizer’s vaccine is the only vaccine authorized for individuals under age 18, you’ll need to find a pharmacy or clinic that has Pfizer’s vaccine in stock. A good place to start would be texting your ZIP code to 438829 to find a Pfizer vaccine for people age 12 and up near you.
Does Pfizer’s Full Fda Approval Extend To Kids
The FDA’s approval of the vaccine by Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, only applies to people as young as 16 years old. While Pfizer remains the only vaccine authorized for use in kids as young as 5 years old, vaccinating that age group is still under emergency use authorization rather than total approval. This is because, along with other factors, full FDA approval requires data on how the vaccine fares six months out, per NPR. Pfizer’s vaccine was only authorized for kids age 12 to 15 in May.
This means that a vaccine mandate that hinges on full approval of a coronavirus vaccine, such as the one announced for school kids in California, won’t apply to kids younger than 16 for a while.
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How Is Pfizer’s Vaccine For Young Kids Different
Pfizer’s vaccine is one-third the dose of the vaccine given to everyone age 12 and older . The needle used to administer the vaccine will also be smaller. Additionally, the cap on the vial the vaccine comes in will be orange instead of purple and gray to avoid mix-ups.
The formula of the vaccine also varies slightly from the formula for adults. Pfizer’s vaccine for kids can be stored up to 10 weeks in a fridge, making it easier to administer. For more information about Pfizer’s vaccine for younger children, check out this fact sheet by the FDA.
What Are The Common Side Effects
No new safety problems were identified in the companies’ studies of this vaccine.
The most common side effects documented in the study were similar to those other age groups have had with COVID-19 vaccines. The most common were pain at the injection site, fatigue and headache and muscle aches. Kids who get the vaccine feel “ultimately fine in two or three days,” Kalu says.
Should I be concerned about serious side effects, especially myocarditis?
In very rare cases, following vaccination with mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, people have developed inflammation of the heart muscle, which is known as myocarditis. In Pfizer’s clinical trial for 5- to 11-year-olds, there were no cases of myocarditis, although the company acknowledged that the trials were not big enough to pick up such rare events.
Myocarditis after vaccination is “very, very rare,” explains Kimberlin. And it’s usually short-lived. In most instances, adolescents who’ve developed myocarditis have improved quickly. “The management of it usually is taking some ibuprofen â some Advil,” Kimberlin says.
Rates of post-vaccination myocarditis are expected to be lower in young kids than those observed in teens. Myocarditis, which can also occur after bacterial and viral infections, including COVID-19, is generally significantly less common among younger children. That’s partly because the condition is linked with puberty hormones, explains pediatrician Nicole Baldwin, who practices in Cincinnati.
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When Parents Choose Not To Vaccinate: Risks And Responsibilities
Parents are responsible for their childs health and well-being, including protecting them from vaccine-preventable diseases. The Canadian Paediatric Society urges all children to receive routine vaccinations and an annual influenza vaccine, unless there is a medical reason not to.
If you choose not to vaccinate your child you should understand the risks. You need to know how to make it less likely that your child gets an infection or spreads disease to others.
What If My Child Is Used To Wearing A Mask By Now Can’t I Just Rely On That For Prevention
Masks have proven to be a key tool for preventing outbreaks in schools, but some experts point out that indoor masking can’t go on forever.
“We actually have to open back up,” Dr. Hayley Gans, pediatrician and infectious disease specialist at Stanford University and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, said during the FDA advisory meeting. “We can’t forever have mitigation â particularly in schools â and children need to return to a more open life, as we all do.”
As cases continue to drop across the country, mask mandates may be lifted, which could increase the likelihood that â especially unvaccinated â kids could get COVID-19.
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Reasons Your Child Should Get Vaccinated For Covid
Interview with Gigi Gronvall, PhD
Last week, the FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization for COVID-19 shots for children ages 511.
The consideration comes at a critical time as we head into the fall and winter when we typically deal with more viruses including colds, flu, and RSV. More than 190 million people ages 12 and up in the U.S. have been fully vaccinated, and an estimated 28 million children are now eligible.
Vaccinating children has benefits beyond giving the virus fewer people to infect. Here, parent and immunologist Gigi Gronvall, PhD, explains why parents shouldnt downplay COVIDs seriousness in childrenand why its important for kids to be vaccinated.
Its likely your child will be exposed to COVID-19 at some point if they havent been already. COVID-19 vaccines help prevent kids from getting severely sick and from long-term complications or even death.
Right now, because there is still so much COVID-19 transmission in the U.S., its the seventh leading cause of death for children ages 511 and even higher than that for kids ages 1218. COVID-19 infections in children are not nothing its far more dangerous than the flu.
Complications from COVID-19 for kids are very rare, but we still dont know what leads to those complicationsa third of children hospitalized had no known risk factors. Complications from COVID can include multi-inflammatory syndrome, myocarditis, long COVID, or a loss of taste and smell, which can also have mental health implications.
Reasons To Not Vaccinate Your Kid
An excerpt from Stay Away From My ER, and other fun bits of wisdom.
1. You dont like to be told what to do. Especially not by arrogant doctors, who act as if they know better, just because theyve been through a few decades of training!
2. Your child hates shots. And, as her parent, you feel that your main job is to keep her comfortable rather than safe.
3. Youre more worried about side effects and complications than you are about tetanus and meningitis. You heard about the two deaths from vaccination errors in Samoa, but not about the 83 measles deaths. Because you dont trust the media. The pro-vaccine mafia is quick to sweep all cases of vaccine-related injury and death under the rug as extremely rare anomalies, but many a parent of a vaccine-injured child will be the first to tell you that, if she could do it all over again, she wouldnt have let her kid get jabbed, said the anti-vaxxers.
4. You once got the flu after you got the flu vaccine, so you know that vaccines dont work. Newsflash: they do. Just not 100 percent.
6. Taking your kid to the doctor takes time. Plus, doctors are always late, like theyre taking care of sick kids or something, and you dont have time for this.
7. Vaccines cost money.Not yours, of course, they come from the insurance. But you still have to pay for the gas.
9. You think that your pediatrician is looking to make money out of your child. After all, pediatricians are well known to be rich.
24. The earth is overpopulated.
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If Your Child Has A Health Condition Or Is Unwell On The Day Of The Vaccine Session
If a young person is unwell on the day, the school age immunisation service provider will decide whether to proceed with vaccination or not. A follow-up offer will be made to any children who miss the first vaccination in their school.
This will help to ensure that the following pupils can access the vaccine:
- if your child turns 12 years of age after the session
- if your child is absent from school on the day
- If your child has recently had a COVID-19 infection
- if you change your mind about whether to have the vaccine or need a bit longer to reach a decision
All questions on the suitability of the vaccine for individual young people should be directed to the school age immunisation service provider delivering the vaccines, who will also be able to share information on these catch-up sessions.
Why We Need Vaccines
Vaccines have successfully lowered the rates of disease in countries with strong vaccination programs.
Some of the diseases that vaccines prevent have no treatment or cure. These diseases can cause:
- severe illness
- disability
- death
Even with improved living conditions and modern hygiene, vaccines are still very important to prevent infections that could make your child very sick.
Some diseases are now rarely seen in Canada because of long-term high rates of vaccination in the population, including:
However, these diseases still exist in some countries, so people who live in them or travel to them may become infected. They can introduce and spread these diseases when they return to Canada. High rates of vaccination against these diseases help to prevent further spread and outbreaks.
The best way to protect your children’s health is to prevent these diseases in the first place by keeping their vaccinations up to date. Some examples include:
Measles
Measles is still a leading cause of death in children worldwide, with 89,780 cases in 2016. One person with measles can infect 12 to 18 people who haven’t had the vaccine.
Measles is a very contagious disease. You can catch it by walking into a room that an infected person sneezed in an hour before you entered.
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What Are The Risks
The vaccine is associated with an extremely rare risk of developing myocarditis inflammation of the heart muscle. This is the condition that has spooked parents since the beginning. Most common in males under the age of 30, the side effect usually goes away without complications. But serious cases can permanently damage the heart muscle and possibly cause heart failure. It has been estimated that 2.7 people per 100,000 who have had the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine have developed the condition.
But it is likely that the eight-week-long gap in doses will even further minimise the already extremely rare risk of developing the condition, say experts including Booy.
And, crucially, adds Booy: If you catch it from COVID-19, its much more likely to be severe, put you in hospital and potentially even be deadly. But myocarditis after a vaccine is almost always mild, you get over it within days. And Im not aware of any deaths from myocarditis as a vaccine side-effect in a child.
So if a child experiences chest pains following a COVID-19 vaccination, Dr Daria Fielder, a general practitioner in Sydneys Bondi Junction whos been rolling out the vaccine has a reassuring message: its very possibly the result of anxiety.
What Do Vaccines Do
Vaccines work by preparing the body to fight illness. Each contains either a dead or a weakened germ that causes a particular disease.
The body practices fighting the disease by making antibodies that recognize specific parts of that germ. This permanent or longstanding response means that if someone is ever exposed to the actual disease, the antibodies are already in place and the body knows how to combat it and the person doesn’t get sick. This is called immunity.
Since the start of widespread vaccinations in the United States, cases of once common childhood illnesses like measles and diphtheria have dropped dramatically. Immunizations have protected millions of kids from dangerous diseases and saved thousands of lives.
In fact, some diseases are so rare now that parents sometimes ask if vaccines for them are even needed. But most diseases that can be prevented by vaccines do still exist in the world, even in the United States, although they happen very rarely.
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How Long Does Immunity Last After Getting A Vaccine
A few vaccines, like the two for measles or the series for hepatitis B, may make you immune for your entire life. Others, like tetanus, last for many years but require periodic shots for continued protection against the disease.
The whooping cough vaccine also does not give lifelong immunity, and that may be one reason why outbreaks still happen. Whooping cough isn’t a serious problem for older kids and adults, but it can be for infants and young children. Because of this, teens and adults now receive a pertussis booster along with the tetanus and diphtheria booster an important step in controlling this infection, particularly for pregnant women and other adults who will be around newborn babies.
It’s important to keep a record of vaccinations so the doctor knows when your kids are due for a booster. Also make sure your kids get the flu vaccine each year. Having been immunized last year won’t protect someone from getting the flu this year because flu viruses constantly change. The vaccine is updated each year to include the most current strains of the virus.
The flu vaccine reduces the average person’s chances of catching the flu by up to 80%. It can’t prevent infection by all viruses that can cause flu-like symptoms, though, so being immunized isn’t a guarantee that someone won’t get sick during flu season. Still, even if someone who’s gotten the vaccine has the flu, symptoms usually will be fewer and milder.
What Of The Risk Of Serious Long
By definition, we cant make a judgment about whats going to happen in five, 10 years, says Thompson. But we should take a lot of solace from the fact that other vaccines have wiped out viruses like smallpox and polio in highly vaccinated countries. Its not like weve never done this before I think well have a go at it. This is vaccination. Were pretty good at this, he says, adding that weve been safely vaccinating babies against diseases like measles, mumps and rubella, for decades.
Vaccinating five to 11-year-olds, he adds, is also a key to stopping the virus from proliferating. The last thing we want is a whole bunch of children who are not vaccinated who ultimately pass the virus to each other… once you contract it, its an opportunity for the virus to mutate and create another variant. We want to suppress the whole thing.
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correction
A previous version of this article cited a statistic from the Canadian Paediatric Society regarding the risk of MIS-C in children. This has been amended to refer to the ATAGI statistic.
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Can Children Age 4 Or Younger Get Vaccinated
Not yet. Fauci has previously said that he expects vaccines to be available to children under 5 by early 2022. On Friday, Pfizer announced that it will be testing a third-dose protocol with children under 5 years old. A two-dose series of a 3-microgram version of the Pfizer vaccine demonstrated effectiveness in children 6 to 24 months, but not 2 to 5 years old.
Everyone 5 and older can get vaccinated. It may have taken a few days for your local pharmacy or health clinic to get Pfizer’s vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11 in stock, however, because it’s different from Pfizer’s vaccine for everyone else . However, the program is up and running now and you should be able to find the smaller dose of the vaccine at a clinic near you.
Kids age 12 and up have been eligible for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for a while. The other mRNA vaccine, Moderna, and the only single-dose vaccine on the US market, Johnson & Johnson, aren’t available to kids yet.