Some parents excited over prospect of vaccination for kids
MISSION, Kan. — After more than a year of fretting over her 13year-old son with a rare liver disease, Heather Ousley broke into tears when she learned that he and millions of other youngsters could soon be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.
“This day is the best day in the history of days!!! I love this day!!!” she texted, joining other parents and educators in welcoming the news that the Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize Pfizer’s vaccine by next week for children ages 12 to 15.
Ousley, president of the school board for the 27,000-student Shawnee Mission School District in Kansas, plans to get her 13- and 15-yearolds promptly vaccinated and then celebrate with ice cream. They have been learning from home with their younger brother since the start of the outbreak.
Pfizer is also anticipating the FDA will endorse use of its vaccine in even younger children sometime this fall. And results are expected by the middle of this year from a U.S. study of Moderna’s shots in 12to 17-year-olds.
Officials are hoping that extending vaccinations to children will drive down the nation’s caseload even further and allow schools to reopen with minimal disruption this fall.
It could also reassure parents and teachers alike. While children rarely get seriously ill from the coronavirus, then can still get sick and spread it to others.
Pfizer in March released preliminary results from a study of 2,260 U.S. volunteers ages 12 to 15, showing there were no cases of COVID-19 among fully vaccinated children compared with 18 among those given dummy shots.
Dan Domenech, executive director of AASA, the School Superintendents Association, said vaccinating younger students should help parents feel more comfortable about sending their children back to classrooms and ease concerns among some teachers.
“Say you have a class where every student is vaccinated and so is the teacher. That becomes a very different environment,” Domenech said.
He added: “Schools were very pleased when the CDC came out with the 3-foot spacing as opposed to the 6-foot spacing, because that immediately allowed them to have more students in school at one time. This will have a similar effect.”
Education advocacy group the National Parents Union released a survey from April of 1,151 parents around the country that found some are conflicted. Forty percent planned to get their children vaccinated immediately, 22 percent eventually and 23 percent never, and the remaining 15 percent were unsure.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday that if the FDA authorizes the use of Pfizer’s vaccine in children as young as 12, the administration is prepared to ship doses to 20,000 pharmacies around the country and directly to pediatricians.