Vaccine for children under 5 likely on the way

Not all parents eager for kids to get shots, which should arrive this month

By the end of the month, the United States will reach what White House COVID-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha calls “an important moment in the pandemic.”

“For the first time,” he said last week, “essentially every American, from our oldest to our youngest, would be eligible for the protection that vaccines provide.”

More than two years into the pandemic, COVID-19 vaccines are expected to be ready for kids younger than 5 — as soon as June 21 — with federal agencies poised to authorize them after a series of meetings over the coming week.

With so much of the world moving on, despite persistently high infection rates and worrisome new variants, are parents eager for the shots?

For many — especially in the highly vaccinated Bay Area — it's a moment that's long overdue.

Marisa C. Juárez Burdick of Sunnyvale said she can't get her “3-year-old vaccinated soon enough.”

“The moment it's ready, we will be banging down the door to get the shot in her arm ASAP,” she said. “I'm sick of the delays, but, of course, I want it to be effective, so we wait. I'm sick of living constantly cautious when the rest of the adult world with no kids has moved on and left us behind. Families of under-fives need this.”

Preschooler parents like her already are scouring the Bay Area Vaccine Hunters Facebook group for tips on how to secure an appointment for their tots before the post-authorization rush. They've put off for too long summer day camps, pre-k and kindergarten plans and visits to grandparents whose age puts them at higher risk of COVID-19.

“We are finally traveling for the first time since PRE-COVID because we just have to see family on the East Coast,” said Mirit Cohen of San Francisco, frustrated that their 4-year-old son won't be able to get the shots before they leave. “He won't be protected.”

But most preschooler parents don't seem to be so eager. A Kaiser Family Foundation COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor in April found just 18% of U.S. parents of kids under age 5 said they would get them vaccinated right away, down from 31% in January.

Of the rest, 38% said they will wait and see, 11% would get them the jabs only if required to and 27% said they definitely will not get them vaccinated.

That suggests even lower vaccination than for children ages 5-11 since they became eligible for the shots last fall. As of June, only 35% of kids those ages have had even one vaccine dose and 29% both shots, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Health officials have had a harder time persuading parents to get their children vaccinated. For one, young children face relatively low risk from the virus, and protection from the shots has faded against the current omicron virus variants. Also, studies indicate three out of four children already have been infected with the COVID-19 virus. And there have been questions about whether rare but serious vaccine side effects like heart inflammation outweigh the benefits in kids.

So if just one in five of the nearly 20 million U.S. tots under age 5 get vaccinated, will it make a significant difference in the pandemic fight?

Pediatricians and infectious disease experts say it's worthwhile for children younger than 5 to get the shots.

“The highest pediatric hospitalization rates have been in the 0- to 4-year-old age category,” said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stanford University School of Medicine. “The current COVID-19 vaccines are highly safe and have been shown to be effective in preventing hospitalizations and severe disease among children 5 and older. They will likely have the same protective impact on infants and children under 5.”

Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health, said he would support vaccinating children under 5 if the Food and Drug Administration finds the shots safe and effective in that age group.

“Even though most children have previously been infected, we cannot account for this immunity to be adequately protective against these new variants of omicron,” Swartzberg said. “At the peak of the omicron surge in January of this year, about 150 children died; this is about the same number of children who die from influenza over an entire year.”

FDA vaccine experts were set to meet Wednesday to consider emergency use authorization for both a twodose Moderna and threedose Pfizer vaccine for children younger than 5. If the FDA authorizes one or both vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine experts would consider recommending the shots in meetings Friday and Saturday.

Dr. Jennifer Tong, associate chief medical officer for Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, said assuming federal authorization, Santa Clara County expects to receive the under-5 vaccine shipments the afternoon of June 20.

Once the doses arrive, the county will open up appointment scheduling online and by phone, Tong said. The county expects additional shipments to arrive over the next few weeks and to have enough vaccine for all who want the shots.

The county has pre-ordered the same amounts of both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine but cautioned that it's possible federal health authorities only greenlight one of them.

Major pharmacies like Walgreens and Rite Aid say they can only administer vaccines to children age 3 and older, so parents of younger tots won't be able to get them the shots there. CVS plans to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to children 18 months through 4 years old at its network of 1,100 Minuteclinic locations.

San Mateo County Health will not offer large-scale vaccine clinics to children under 5 or at its community clinics but instead will provide small-scale clinics at early Head Start sites and staffing and administrative support to interested pediatric providers that serve publicly insured families.

Medical experts see the authorization of vaccines to this final age group as a major milestone in the battle against the virus.

“While hospitalizations and deaths have been most striking among those 65 and older,” Maldonado said, “children should also have the opportunity to both survive and thrive.”