When Children Under 5 Can Finally Get Their COVID Vaccines
After a seemingly endless wait, two COVID vaccines are finally allowed for children under 5 years of age. An FDA advisory panel on Wednesday voted to grant emergency use approval for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for children 6 months of age and older.
What’s next and when can my children get vaccinated?
There are still a few more regulatory steps to take before vaccines become available. The CDC advisory group is due to meet and decide on its recommendations for new vaccines. After that, once FDA approval and CDC recommendations are received, providers can start giving vaccines. If all goes well, it could happen as early as next week.
The vaccination schedule differs depending on the type of vaccine. The two doses of Moderna vaccine are scheduled to be given four weeks apart, while the three-dose Pfizer vaccine has a three-week delay between the first and second shots and eight weeks between the second and third.
The vaccines in the trials were not given at the same time as other childhood vaccines. When COVID vaccines were first recommended for adults, there was supposed to be a two-week waiting period between COVID vaccines and any other vaccine; this rule was later abolished. We don’t yet know if the CDC will say that a similar waiting period is needed for these youth vaccines.
How well do vaccines work?
The Pfizer vaccine has three doses. Trials showed that two doses were only 28% effective against symptomatic disease, but with the third dose, the effectiveness jumped to 80%. But this latest analysis was based on only a small amount of data, and some regulators are skeptical about the numbers.
Moderna’s two-dose vaccine was 51% effective against symptomatic COVID in children under 2 years of age and 37% effective in children aged 2 to 5 years.
Which vaccine is best for children under 5?
Experts warn that vaccine efficacy rates cannot be compared directly. The two vaccines were tested at different times during the pandemic, and the numbers for each came from different types of assays. It’s possible that Moderna’s vaccine will actually work better in real-world conditions, but we won’t know for sure just yet. If you’re trying to decide between two doses, Moderna’s two-dose regimen is definitely easier to schedule, and children will get protection much sooner.
No booster recommendation yet, but it’s safe to assume both will need boosters at some point.
What concerns do experts have?
First, COVID is milder in children than in adults. This means some parents and experts are wondering how helpful a vaccine could be. But we do know that half of the children hospitalized for COVID had no comorbidities, and that with Omicron, young children in this age group faced the same risk of severe symptoms as older children.
The side effects of these vaccines are similar to other childhood vaccines: irritability, crying, and sometimes fever.
We’ll know more when the CDC releases its final recommendations, but based on what we know now? If I had a child under 5, I would vaccinate him.