Note: No Q&A on Monday as I’ll be taking my kid for their 1st COVID vaccination!

Question: Will you get your child vaccinated?

Answer: Yes!  Absolutely! Without reservation. The earliest appointment we could get is Monday morning and we’re going then.  If you have specific questions or concerns, please share and I’ll do my best to respond.  In the meantime, know that:

• COVID-19 harms children. Since the beginning of the pandemic, among US children ages 5-11, there have been: 
  • 1.9 million cases
  • 8,300 hospitalizations
  • 2,316 MIS-C cases
  • 94 deaths; more deaths due to COVID than a host of other diseases that we vaccinate against (Figure 1).
• The vaccine works. Its efficacy against symptomatic, lab-confirmed COVID-19 is 90.9% (95% CI: 68.3%, 98.3%).  Based on recent incidence, we’d expect every million vaccinations in children ages 5-11 to prevent >58K cases, 226 hospitalizations, 132 MIS-C cases, and 72 ICU admissions.
• The vaccine is safe. In phase 2/3 clinical trials, there were no severe adverse events related to vaccination. Meanwhile, 2.7% of children in the vaccine arm vs 1.1% in the placebo arm had a local or systemic reaction within 7 days of the first dose. (local reaction= redness, swelling, pain at the injection site; systemic reaction=  fever, nausea/vomiting, headache, fatigue, chills, new or worsened muscle pain, new or worsened joint pain).  When it comes to the rare event of vaccine-associated myocarditis, no cases of myocarditis occurred during the clinical trials with 5–11-year-olds.  Additionally, experts expect that  myocarditis after vaccination in 5–11-year-olds will be lower than rates seen in 12–15-year-olds due to biological differences and dosing differences.  Finally, experience with >400 million doses of mRNA vaccines administered to people 12 years of age and older highlights the vaccine’s safety.     

Figure 1. Deaths per year prior to recommended vaccines. COVID vaccination in children is important. (from CDC’s ACIP)