COVID-19 shots ready for youngest kids
Anna Farrow nearly cried on Tuesday morning as she held a pair of COVID-19 vaccine cards for her 4-year-old son and 10month-old daughter, the first children under 5 to receive the shots at Texas Children’s Hospital.
The Houston mother and her husband, Luke, have been cautious throughout the pandemic to protect their son George, who was born prematurely at 26 weeks and has a fragile immune system. They’ve continued to take precautions since the birth of their daughter Hannah, even as other kids have been going on playdates or attending birthday parties.
Now that the vaccine has been approved for use in children 6 months to 4 years old, the Farrows can finally look forward to bringing their kids to the playground and sending George to school in the fall.
“It feels like it’s been a really long time coming,” Anna Farrow said. “We were ecstatic, to say the least.”
Texas Children’s and Children’s Memorial Hermann hospitals are among the pediatric health care providers across the U.S. that began administering the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines to children 6 months through 4 years old on Tuesday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved emergency use of both vaccines for that age group on Friday, and the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off on Saturday.
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, or by calling their Children’s Memorial Hermann pediatrician’s office.
The availability of shots for anyone at least 6 months old is a milestone in the fight against COVID-19. It comes 18 months since the vaccines were first administered to frontline health care workers, and one month after they were approved for children 5 to 11 years old.
“For the first time since the pandemic started, anyone who wants to be vaccinated can be vaccinated,” said Dr. Michael Chang, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at UTHealth Houston and Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. “I think that’s a really important milestone.”
Data from clinical trials shows that Moderna’s vaccine is 51 percent effective at preventing illness in children 6 months to 2 years old, and 37 percent effective at preventing disease in children 2 to 5 years old. Pfizer’s vaccine is 80 percent effective at preventing illness, but that is based on just 10 cases.
Most importantly, both vaccines are very effective at preventing the type of severe illness that could result in a child being hospitalized, said Dr. Stan Spinner, the chief medical officer and vice president of Texas Children’s Pediatrics. That’s particularly important while the omicron variant of the virus continues to drive infections in Houston and elsewhere, he said.
“The risk of getting infected anywhere you go right now is quite high,” Spinner said. “The sooner you can get your young child — or any age child — protected right now, the better.”
Children are less likely to become severely ill from COVID-19, but there have been more than 400 deaths among kids 6 months through 4 years old since the start of the pandemic, according to CDC data. In addition, hospitalizations for children under 5 years old surged during the omicron wave.
Children who contract COVID-19 could also face complications such as multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C), a rare but serious condition in which parts of the body — including the heart, kidneys, lungs and brain — can become inflamed. Other complications include a type of heart inflammation called myocarditis. There are rare instances of myocarditis being found in older children and young adults after they’ve been vaccination, but the heart inflammation is much more common in children who’ve been infected with COVID-19, Spinner said.
Chang and Spinner said the benefits of vaccination far outweigh any possible risks to young children. The most common side effects have been fever and pain near the injection site.
“For parents who say, ‘I just want to do what I can to protect my child against potential problems in the future,’ the vaccine is the safest and most effective way to maximize that protection,” Chang said.
Children in the youngest age group are receiving smaller doses of the vaccine than older kids and adults. 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.
Due to the separate timetables, Chang said he’s recommending the Moderna vaccine to any parents who want their kids to be vaccinated before they return to school in the fall.
The Farrow children each received a dose of the Moderna vaccine on Tuesday. Anna Farrow said it felt “surreal” to see her kids finally get the shots.
“It’s a weird thing to be picturing and fantasizing about, but that’s definitely what I had been thinking about for so long now,” she said.