Texas Children’s vaccinates 6,000 kids under 5 years

Texas Children’s Hospital has administered COVID-19 vaccines to nearly 6,000 children ages 6 months through 4 years old since the youngest age group became eligible to receive the shots last week, the hospital said Thursday.

“We’ve been waiting for a long time to be able to protect our youngest children,” said Dr. Stan Spinner, the chief medical officer and vice president of Texas Children’s Pediatrics. “We’ve had families asking for a long time ‘When is this vaccine going to be available for our kids?’ And now it is.”

Still, the overall share of children younger than 5 who have received the shot is incredibly low — hovering around 1 percent statewide. Another 3,000 children are scheduled for vaccine appointments at Texas Children’s Hospital or more than 60 Texas Children’s Pediatrics locations in the Houston, Austin and College Station areas, hospital spokeswoman Natasha Barrett said during a news conference.

Vaccines are also available to kids under 5 at other hospitals, including Children’s Memorial Hermann, as well as pediatrician’s offices, pharmacies and other locations.

Across Texas,the overall interest in vaccines for children has been lagging. Just 26 percent of Texas residents aged 5 to 11 and 59 percent of residents aged 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated, according to data from the New

York Times. Just 4 percent of Texas residents under 18 years old have received a booster.

However, Texas Children’s doctors said they have also been encouraged by that fact that families with children 5 to 11 years old have been signing up for booster shots of the PfizerBioNTech vaccine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration

approved booster shots for that age group last month.

“They have seen firsthand that not only is the vaccine efficient — that it works — but it’s safe as well,” said Dr. Ana Avalos, a pediatrician at Texas Children’s Pediatrics.

Texas Children’s Pediatrics has administered more than 18,000 vaccine doses to children of all age groups since March, Barrett said.

It’s important to vaccinate children as soon as possible so they’ll be protected for the start of the school year, and for when cases could increase again in the fall and winter, Avalos noted.

For children under 5, the Moderna vaccine is given in two doses, four weeks apart. The Pfizer vaccine is given in three doses; the second dose comes three weeks after the first, and the third dose comes eight weeks after the second.

Children 5 to 17 receive two doses of the Pfizer vaccine at least three weeks apart or two doses of the Moderna vaccine at least four weeks apart.

While children are less likely to become severely ill from COVID-19, there have been more than 400 deaths among kids 6 months through 4 years old and more than 800 deaths among children 5 to 17 since the start of the pandemic, according to CDC data. Children can also develop severe symptoms that could lead to a hospitalization, or complications such as multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a rare but serious condition in the heart, kidneys, lungs, brain and other parts of the body can become inflamed.

“Don’t wait to vaccinate your kids,” Spinner said. “Get them protected. Because not all kids who get COVID end up with just mild infection.”

Parents and caregivers can schedule vaccine appointments for kids who are at least 6 months old by using the online schedulers for Texas Children’s Hospital and Texas Children’s Pediatrics practices. Children’s Memorial Hermann is also offering vaccine appointments, which can be scheduled by calling your pediatrician’s office.