What doctors wish parents knew about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine for children

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that a third of parents said they plan to get their children vaccinated right away. Yet other parents are taking a wait-and-see approach to COVID-19 vaccinations for children. But with the Delta-Omicron Variant Beacon Team, widespread vaccination is an essential tool to prevent COVID-19-related deaths, hospitalizations and illnesses.

To help parents get out of that “wait-and-see” mentality and calm their fears, two doctors have shared what to know about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine for children.

the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has received emergency use authorization for children and adolescents 5-15 years of age. For ages 16 or older, the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is fully approved. The vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 is dispensed in smaller doses and with smaller needles to make it easier for doctors and others to administer. It is one-third the dose for adolescents and adults and is given in two doses, 21 days apart. Vaccination was nearly 91% effective in preventing COVID-19 in children 5 to 11 years old.

AMAs What doctors want patients to know™ offers physicians a platform to share what they want patients to understand about today’s healthcare headlines, especially throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode, two members of the AMA took the time to share what parents need to know about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine for children. They are:

• Joanne Loethen, MD, an internist and pediatrician in Kansas City, Missouri. Dr. Loethen is also an alternate delegate to the Missouri delegation and a member of the AMA Ambassador Program, which equips individuals with the skills and knowledge to speak confidently about WADA’s initiatives and the value of WADA membership.
• Luis Seija, MD, an internal medicine and pediatrics resident at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Dr Seija is also delegate for the AMA Residents and Fellows Section and the AMA Minority Affairs Section.

“We are right now in the pandemic where we are seeing another surge and a lot of it is for kids ages 5-11. They are the ones with the highest incidence,” Dr Seija said. “What people also forget is that children in general are disease vectors, especially with the start of the school year.”

“Children are carriers of SARS-CoV-2. Even if they don’t have symptoms, they could be carrying it and they could infect someone who might not be able to get vaccinated,” he said.

“Rates of serious illness in children are much lower than what we have seen in the adult population or those with existing comorbidities, but no risk or extremely low risk is better than even a small risk,” said Dr. Löthen. “If we have something that can prevent children from getting COVID and the long-term effects of this infection, I would hate for parents to regret not having it when we could have prevented it from the start. “

“From a public health perspective, by protecting us all and creating a bubble of prevention, we can prevent COVID and those who are not eligible to get vaccinated, including those 5 and under,” she said.

Find out why COVID-19 is now a childhood disease, according to Paul Offit, MD.

“We know they are extremely safe for children and the side effect profiles are very similar in the 5+ group as they are 16+” which is similar to what “we’ve seen with adults,” Dr. Loethen said. “So we know that they are very safe and protect a lot of children, not only at the individual level, but also at the population level.”

“I fully understand if parents have any hesitation about any new medical device, drug, vaccine that their child is potentially eligible for,” she said. “It’s only natural to be hesitant about these things.

“What I can say is that we have studied thousands of children and hundreds of thousands have now received this vaccine,” Dr Loethen added. “We know it’s safe and effective. And when you look at the numbers, that certainly supports the vaccine because of its safety and effectiveness against COVID 19.”

To discover how we know the COVID-19 vaccine for children is safe.

For ages 5 to 11, side effects from the COVID-19 vaccine will be similar to those ages 16 or older.

This means “pain in the arm where they got the shot, fatigue, headache, chills, muscle aches,” Dr Loethen said.

“It’s a very specially designed vaccine that helps your body build immunity against COVID, but you’re going to experience certain types of symptoms,” Dr Seija said. “Your child might have a fever, they might have body aches, or they might just feel overall, just sickening.”

The good news is that “side effects show up within 12 hours and usually disappear within 24 hours of vaccine administration,” Dr. Loethen said. Parents should “always contact your family doctor or pediatrician if you have any questions or concerns after the vaccine.”

“There have been very rare cases of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscles, in relation to the COVID-19 vaccine,” Dr. Seija said. “But again, very few, very rare.”

” We saw increased cases of myocarditis in young people who receive the vaccine, especially in adolescents,” said Dr. Loethen. “And certainly that risk exists, but what we see from the numbers is that the risk is very low – lower than your actual risk of myocarditis from COVID 19.”

“Myocarditis is a common thing that people bring up, but statistics show there were 54 cases per million doses in children 12 to 17 years old who had received the vaccine,” she said. “When you put those risks on paper and look at the numbers, the benefits always outweigh the risks.”

“Additionally, all of the myocarditis cases we’ve seen have fully recovered if associated with the vaccine,” Dr. Loethen said.

“From a pediatrician’s perspective, we have an obligation to obtain informed consent.” said Dr. Seija. “We want to tell you about the benefits and risks. This is why we always review certain questions before administering any vaccine to ensure that it is safe for your child. And with vaccines, the benefits always outweigh the risks.

“No vaccine we have to date is 100% effective,” Dr Loethen said. “And so even with vaccinated children, we will see breakthrough infections in them.

“But we know it helps prevent hospitalizations and severe COVIDs,” she added. “So while it doesn’t protect you from the virus itself, if you get a breakthrough infection, your illness won’t be as bad if you hadn’t had the vaccine.”

“While you can still get COVID – that’s always a possibility – what the vaccine does is it reduces the severity of the disease and it’s more than likely that you won’t be hospitalized,” he said. said Dr. Seija.

Although “children are less likely to get COVID and severe COVID, they also tolerate the vaccine very well,” Dr. Loethen said. “Even if children don’t get COVID-19 or even severe COVID-19 as often as often, it’s really hard to tell a parent whose child unfortunately has this infection and has sequelae that children don’t have. no need to be vaccinated.

“I guarantee that any of those parents now dealing with the aftermath of a child with COVID-19 would have jumped on the vaccine in a heartbeat,” she added. “I hate that anyone has to be that parent, so prevention is key here.”

There are “still cases of what we call long COVID, where even after recovering from acute illness or the most immediate illness of COVID, we still have people with headaches, fatigue and difficulty breathing that are truly debilitating and prevent children from living. ‘going to school, preventing people from working,’ explained Dr Loethen. .

“mRNA vaccines are being developed even before the pandemic started,” Dr. Seija said. It’s because of “this innovation in the way we develop and approve vaccines” that made these COVID-19 vaccines come to fruition.

“And the vaccines have been tested on hundreds of thousands of people and continue to be monitored,” he added. “For it to be approved in this age group, there were actually children who were involved in the clinical trials.”

“It wouldn’t have been allowed in this age group if it hadn’t been tested on children in clinical trials first,” Dr Seija pointed out.

Just as getting the flu shot can help protect infants under 6 months old who aren’t eligible for this type of vaccination, getting the COVID-19 shot can help protect younger family members, said Dr Loethen.

“We need to create a bubble of flu immunity, so everyone in the family gets the flu shot so we can protect your child who can’t get the flu shot.

“It’s very similar with the COVID-19 vaccination. Many of the children now eligible to get vaccinated have siblings under the age of 5 and cannot get vaccinated,” she added. By protecting older siblings, we can then protect younger siblings.”

“From what we know so far, vaccination against COVID-19 protects against variants,” Dr. Loethen said. “Now we are talking about the new Omicron variant and the evidence keeps coming out about that and how effective the vaccine is against that.

“But we still know that COVID-19 vaccines are very effective against the original virus and many of its variants,” she added.

Vaccination of children also has a benefit for the population as a whole.

“The virus is very different from what it was at the start of the pandemic, but our solution remains the same: masking, testing, physical distancing and vaccination. We need to get our children vaccinated,” Dr Seija said.

WADA recognizes the critical importance of scientific integrity, transparency and public trust as we fight to contain the global spread of COVID-19 and plan for the authorization, distribution and administration of vaccines against COVID-19. Stay up to date with the AMA on Development of the COVID-19 vaccine.