COVID-19 vaccinations for young children

“You know, I think parents should really think about trying to protect their kids against severe COVID-19 disease. We’re looking at these vaccines now from Moderna and Pfizer for how effective they are at preventing any symptomatic disease. But keep in mind that—even when you see the rates of those protective efficacy or vaccine efficacy—there’s a higher efficacy protecting kids against severe disease. And that’s really one of our main goals. And probably our main goal in vaccinating anyone is to protect against those bad outcomes from COVID-19.” (Posted June 16, 2022 | Download Video)

Paul Spearman, M.D.
Director, division of infectious diseases, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Grab This Quote

“I think that both vaccine choices are really good choices for parents, for kids under five. I think that one of the things that parents should talk to pediatricians about is what they would recommend. Things to look out for are how many doses, so the vaccines are given at two different doses. We do expect that eventually everybody is going to need three doses, so that’s just something just to keep in mind. The other thing to look for is how well the vaccines work to protect against COVID, and what the side effects of the two vaccines are, because they are different. They have different side effects.” (Posted June 16, 2022 | Download Video)

Kawsar Talaat, M.D.
Associate professor, department of international health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Grab This Quote

“I think probably the most important factor that parents need to be aware of is that children can become quite ill with COVID-19. For a long time in the common press there were quotes that were out there that basically said either children did not become ill with COVID, or if they did become ill with COVID they didn’t get sick. They were infected, but they didn’t get sick. What we know is that COVID can infect individuals of every single age, and actually children under a year of age in a child that has any type of underlying condition is at higher risk for developing serious COVID infection if they were to get COVID. So that is one of the considerations that parents need to think about is that children can become quite ill with COVID, and the best way to protect them against COVID is really to vaccinate them.”

 

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Tina Tan, M.D.
Professor of pediatrics, pediatric infectious diseases physician, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University Grab This Quote

“I think it’s very important for kids under the age of five to get the COVID-19 vaccine. And as a parent, I think I would think mostly about preventing severe disease in kids. We know that COVID—it for instance causes a lot more severe disease than influenza. Now we encourage vaccination against flu as well, because that can occasionally cause really bad outcomes in kids. COVID can as well, but at a higher rate.  And so let’s protect our kids. And then another factor is that parents have probably heard about this inflammatory syndrome called MIS-C. We know that these vaccines can also protect against that outcome.” (Posted June 16, 2022 | Download Video)

Paul Spearman, M.D.
Director, division of infectious diseases, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Grab This Quote

“I think it’s really important for kids under five to get the vaccine for so many reasons. The first is that kids in this age group who get COVID, even though most of them do well, some kids do end up in the hospital. And for more than half of those kids, they are healthy kids who are in the hospital just because they have COVID. COVID is now the fourth or fifth leading cause of death in kids under five, and if there is a way to prevent that—and we do have a tool to prevent that, the vaccines—we should use them. Also, vaccines will help keep kids in day care and in school, so that if they’re exposed to a classmate who has COVID, they don’t have to quarantine at home if they have no symptoms, and they can let them visit their grandparents with more safety and security, if their grandparents are older or if they have underlying medical conditions that put them at higher risk from COVID—so, so many reason to vaccinate this age group.” (Posted June 16, 2022 | Download Video)

Kawsar Talaat, M.D.
Associate professor, department of international health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Grab This Quote

“We know that kids do transmit COVID, not only to kids of their own age, but also to adults that may be taking care of them, who may or may not be vaccinated. The other reason that is important to vaccinate these kids is that many kids live in multi-generational households. And we know that some of the older adults that live in these households, even though they may be vaccinated, may not respond to vaccine as well as someone who is younger. And this can leave these individuals susceptible to COVID and the complications associated with it. So the more people in the household that can be vaccinated, the better these individuals will be protected. So you’re protecting not only the child, but you’re protecting other individuals.” (Posted June 16, 2022 | Download Video)

Tina Tan, M.D.
Professor of pediatrics, pediatric infectious diseases physician, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University Grab This Quote

“We know that we have a pretty crowded childhood vaccine schedule, and many parents are—all parents are aware of that. And yet we’re still going to have to build in the COVID-19 vaccines. We know that we can give them together with things like flu vaccines, so it’s very likely that we can give them together with the commonly used vaccines as well. And we don’t have uniform recommendations for that yet that are out, but I think that this is something that will be coming down the line. So eventually we’ll see it, probably added into your normal childhood vaccinations, but let’s stay tuned.” (Posted June 16, 2022 | Download Video)

Paul Spearman, M.D.
Director, division of infectious diseases, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center Grab This Quote

“I think there’s a lot of arguments being made for making it a routine childhood vaccination. We vaccinate against all sorts of diseases that had less severe impacts on the health of children than COVID does—and less severe impacts on society than COVID does. Unfortunately we’ve politicized COVID in a way that we haven’t necessarily politicized public health in the past, and I think we need to move beyond that and do what’s best for our children and our families. And if vaccinating all children against COVID protects them and protects their families, I think that’s the way to go. Unfortunately it’s likely to be a yearly vaccination, not just a one-time vaccination or twice during childhood. But we do that for influenza vaccines that are recommended for kids, so I think it’s something to think about in the future once these vaccines are more widely used.” (Posted June 16, 2022 | Download Video)

Kawsar Talaat, M.D.
Associate professor, department of international health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Grab This Quote

“There are definitely many, many more pros than cons. If you want to look at one con, it is an additional vaccination that people will need to get. Hopefully when COVID definitely becomes endemic, it will be very similar to the flu vaccine, where you will be giving the vaccine once a year. But the benefits of vaccination far, far outweigh any of the cons that may be associated with the addition of a vaccine to the schedule.” (Posted June 16, 2022 | Download Video)

Tina Tan, M.D.
Professor of pediatrics, pediatric infectious diseases physician, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University Grab This Quote