Photo by Mufid Majnun on Unsplash
Almost a year since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations for adults, children and adolescents are now encouraged to get vaccinated.
As of November 3, 2021, after the U.S. approved Pfizer/BioNTech, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC recommends children and adolescents ages five years and older get a COVID-19 vaccine to help protect against COVID-19.
In their website, CDC emphasizes the importance of why children and teens should get vaccinated, highlighting the reason that “while COVID-19 tends to be milder in children compared with adults, it can make children very sick and cause children to be hospitalized. In some situations, the complications from infection can lead to death.”
They also mentioned that those with underlying medical conditions are more at risk for the virus. Furthermore, children who get infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 can also “develop serious complications like multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C)—a condition where different body parts become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs.”
While many parents were encouraged to get the shot, many are still hesitant to do so. However, CDC assures that since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, the vaccines have undergone—and will continue to undergo—the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history. Experts also explained that getting vaccinated is necessary to return to normal.
After the clinical trials, FDA gave the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine emergency authorization to use in children ages 5-15 years old and full approval to use in people ages 16 years and older. FDA officials in a report said that the vaccine was around 91% effective in preventing COVID-19 towards children and their immune response was comparable to that seen in people aged 16 to 25. There were also no serious side effects that were recorded by the researchers.
CDC is expecting to give jabs to more than 28 million children in the United States. CDC also advised parents on how to best prepare and support their children and teens for vaccination. This includes setting expectations on the vaccination, where, when, and how it’s administered, even including that shots can be painful but won’t hurt for too long. It could also help explain to them the importance of vaccines and what they can do to the body. They also carefully remind parents that vaccines may experience mild reactions to the shot, such as pain at the injection site, a rash, or fever which are normal and will soon go away.
According to reports, there have been 15 million low-dose children’s jabs that have already been transferred from the Pfizer storage facilities to the designated distribution centres.
Last month, the U.S. shared their plans on distributing the vaccines through more than 25,000 paediatric offices and 100 children’s hospitals along with pharmacies, school-based clinics, and community centres. This plan was prepared since this age group, everything from dosing to counselling support from clinicians to the post-jab waiting period looks different than for other age groups, and parents will need a trusted voice in the room.
Opinions expressed by NY Weekly contributors are their own.
