COVID Shots: An Easy Choice

 

Despite growing evidence highlighting the safety and effectiveness of mRNA vaccines to protect all age groups from severe COVID-19, uptake in the pediatric population has been slow.

According to the CDC COVID Data Tracker, by the end of January 2023, 62% of eligible teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 completed their primary 3-shot series, and only 7% received the updated bivalent booster.

Since vaccines were approved for 5-to-11-year-olds in November 2021 (right before Delta gave way to Omicron), 33% have finished their primary series so far, and 4% have gotten the bivalent booster.

Last summer, 20 million American children under 5 became eligible to receive their primary series of shots. To date, only 9% of those kids have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Researchers examining the effectiveness and safety of mRNA vaccines remind us why children are targeted with COVID shots in the first place:

SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19–related illnesses have affected all age groups and caused over 6.5 million deaths across the globe as of September 2022. During the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, studies showed that children with COVID-19 tended to present with milder symptoms than adults. However, as the pandemic progressed, emerging evidence suggested that children were still at risk of developing severe illnesses and complications from COVID-19, including respiratory failure, myocarditis, and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).

 

Comparing pediatric deaths due to COVID-19 to deaths from other vaccine-preventable diseases, pediatric vaccine expert Paul Offit, M.D. says immunizing children against the pandemic virus makes perfect sense:

Every year, prior to the availability of a vaccine, 3 children died of hepatitis A virus, 8 children died of meningococcus, 16 children died of varicella, 17 people of all ages died of rubella, and 20 children died of rotavirus. Between October 2020 and October 2021, 66 children aged 5 to 11 years died of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Now, we had a vaccine that would likely prevent those COVID-19 deaths.

 

In a very large study involving more than 13 million children ages 5-11, researchers confirmed the results of prior studies showing that mRNA vaccines in this age group are safe and effective. While mild side effects were noted (local pain and swelling at the injection site and low-grade fever were not uncommon), serious adverse events, including myocarditis, were extremely rare and resolved quickly within days. In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Offit provided more details:

In this issue of JAMA Pediatrics, Watanabe and coauthors evaluated the safety and efficacy of 2 doses of Pfizer’s messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine in children aged 5 to 11 years during both the delta and omicron waves of COVID-19. In a systematic review and meta-analysis that included 17 published studies of 10, 935 ,541 vaccinated and 2 ,635 ,251 unvaccinated children, they found that the mRNA vaccine was effective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection, symptomatic infection, hospitalization, and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). The vaccine was also safe; myocarditis occurred in only 1.8 per million vaccinees. This analysis offers 2 important advances over previous, smaller studies. First, during both the delta and omicron waves, mRNA vaccines consistently protected against serious illness, including MIS-C. Second, the risk of myocarditis was minuscule.

 

Dr. Offit makes a persuasive case to parents who are still hesitant to vaccinate their children and protect them from COVID-19:

Parents should be both compelled and reassured by the following facts: (1) although the COVID-19 pandemic is ending, SARS-CoV2 virus will be circulating for years, if not decades; (2) while some SARS-CoV-2 variants might have become less virulent, the virus is unlikely to evolve to avirulence; (3) about 3 to 4 million children will be born every year who will be susceptible to this virus; (4) the SARS-CoV-2 virus can cause severe and occasionally fatal disease in all age groups; (5) mRNA vaccines, which have now been given to more than 10 million children between 5 and 11 years of age, have been shown to be effective at preventing severe disease; and (6) myocarditis is an extremely rare consequence of mRNA vaccines in young children. Given the amount of information currently available to parents, the decision to vaccinate their children should be an easy one.

 

 

(Image: CDC)

 

source https://www.thepediablog.com/2023/02/02/covid-shots-an-easy-choice/