A jab can help protect your child
When we had kids after two years of trying, one friend, a father of four, wrote to me and all he said was, “what life’s all about.” We have four kids now, too, between 12 and six. Life’s busy. But sometimes I remember reading “Love You Forever” at bedtime and having to breathe to keep from crying, so I could keep going, and get to the end.
On Friday, as expected, Health Canada approved the Pfizer vaccine for kids aged five to 11. The first doses land Sunday; public health unit clinics will start by the middle of the week. By the end of next week Canada will have distributed a first dose for every eligible child.
So very soon, a lot more parents are going to be able to vaccinate their kids. The fundamental mission of a parent is to protect your children from an uncertain world. This will help.
“Everyone’s emotions are always higher,” said Dr. Janine McCready, an infectious disease specialist at Michael Garron Hospital, “when you’re talking about your children.”
McCready has been a leader on school testing, on community protection, and more recently, has spearheaded consultation with parents whose kids would be eligible for this vaccine, and might be hesitant for different reasons. She has spent a lot of time on this.
“We’ve really minimized COVID in kids; at first it was like, kids don’t get COVID, and then they don’t spread COVID, and then it was, ‘oh, they don’t get very sick,’ ” said McCready. “And most of the time they have mild disease, but that doesn’t mean that sometimes they don’t sometimes get severe disease and that they can’t have long-term side-effects. And if we can prevent that from happening altogether, and we have something safe to do that with, why wouldn’t we do that?
“And also, all the other things that go with being vaccinated: being able to go back to being kids, and not have to worry about exposing people, and being able to keep the people around you safe.”
Let’s be clear about the safety aspect because it’s important. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration reviewed the trial data, and approved the vaccine. Health Canada did the same, and the National Advisory Council on Immunization examined more than just the trials and issued its recommendation, too.
The early signals on the Pfizer pediatric vaccine are excellent. There were no cases of severe events such as myocarditis, pericarditis, allergic reaction, anaphylaxis, multi-system inflammatory syndrome, or death in the trials. It is important to note that at just over 3,000 children, the trials were not big enough to fully detect rare adverse events. A lower risk of myocarditis is expected versus the already low incidence in older kids; that is extrapolated as much as observed.
But there is no indication of severe risk at this stage, based on either evidence of what experts know about vaccination, and safety signals usually present in the first eight weeks. More evidence will soon unroll from the U.S., which has given first shots to 10 per cent of kids between five and 11. There have been no new safety signals yet.
And Canada has its own guidance. Health Canada approved a threeweek interval between shots because they were approving how the trials themselves were conducted; NACI, whose immunization guidance has been one of the quiet triumphs of this pandemic, is recommending eight weeks because it will increase protection and lower an already minuscule chance of what is expected to be mild, treatable myocarditis. Dr. Supriya Sharma, Health Canada’s chief medical adviser, noted that the risk of myocarditis is estimated to be 20 times higher from the virus than from the vaccine.
Everyone involved is also watching desperately for any safety signal they can see, and will continue to do so. NACI recommends parents space out any other vaccinations by at least two weeks — not because of any safety concerns, but so that any safety signal of any kind can be clearly detected. And so far, severe COVID is rare in kids, but adverse events from vaccination appear to be rarer still.
“I think it’s really important to be compassionate. I think it’s really important that parents feel comfortable and confident in their decisions, and that starts with having adequate and accurate information,” said Sharma. “But what we’re seeing today is we’re authorizing the vaccine for this age group, because (the) benefits outweigh the risks for COVID-19.”
Not every parent will want to do this right away. And as someone who believes vaccine mandates should be applied to a wide swathe of industries and settings, and always paired with compassionate education and outreach: that’s OK. It’s OK for parents to treat this as the most personal part of a pandemic whose central question is one of societal trust. Hardcore antivaxxers can’t be reasoned with. The hesitant should be treated with compassion. These are their kids.
“I think it is normal for parents to have questions, and we should be able to answer them,” said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer.
One of the contradictions of vaccination — at least for those who are hesitant — is vaccination is a personal choice with a societal and population-level effect. But for the record, every infectious diseases specialist or virologist I have spoken to with children between five and 11 plans to vaccinate their kids, because they have decided, based on the available information, that is the best way to protect them. I will vaccinate mine, too.
And for some parents the relief will be oceanic; when parents of kids under five are given an option for a safe vaccine, they will feel that, too. When the nurses hand you your baby all you want to do is protect it, and that never really goes away. For nearly two years this pandemic had added weight, whether you feel it every day or not. When you are responsible for others, that weight is multiplied. Based on everything we know, this vaccine will help people protect their children. It’s part of the road back.
So it’s OK, at this particular moment in history, if you feel like you have to keep from crying. But this is like a breath, right? A deep breath. You can keep going.