Kids Ages 5-11 Roll Up Sleeves For COVID Shots: 5 Things To Know

ACROSS AMERICA — Elementary school-age kids across America began rolling up their sleeves to get COVID-19 vaccinations Wednesday after government health officials cleared the way for kid-sized doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

For the Biden administration, getting America’s 28 million schoolchildren ages 5-11 vaccinated against the coronavirus is a big step in returning the country to pre-pandemic normalcy, when kids had sleepovers and play dates, and showed up in person at school every day.

"There are children in the second grade who have never experienced a normal school year," Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday. "Pediatric vaccination has the power to help us change all of that."

Here are five things parents should know about the vaccine:

1. Is it safe?

Walensky, who green-lighted the children’s vaccine Tuesday, said she understands parents’ reluctance to vaccinate their children, but told “CBS Mornings” on Wednesday that “we’ve taken the time to get this right.” Clinical trials in children showed “no severe events” associated with the vaccine, she said.

Walensky and other public health officials have encouraged parents to run their concerns past their pediatricians. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy warned in a White House news conference Wednesday that parents who are worried about the safety of the vaccine should take care to consult only credible sources. He has said previously that misinformation about vaccines have set back Biden administration vaccination goals.

2. Kids generally have mild cases of COVID-19, but medical experts say the vaccine will prevent some deaths.

One prevailing argument among parents is that children generally have mild COVID-19 symptoms that don’t require hospitalization and rarely result in death. That’s not always true.

The CDC says:

• More than 8,30O kids ages 5 -11 have been hospitalized with a serious COVID-19 illnesses.
At least 791 children have died from COVID-19, including 172 children ages 5-11.
• The number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 illnesses increased nearly five-fold over the summer months as the delta variant surged.
• More than 5,200 children and teens have developed MIS-C, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, a COVID-19-linked condition that often requires admission to an intensive care unit.
• Black, Native American and Hispanic children are three times more likely to be hospitalized than white children.

No one can predict with certainty which children are most at risk of developing severe cases of COVID-19 or MIS-C. But an April CDC analysis of hospitalization records showed about 30 percent of children hospitalized with COVID-19 had no underlying conditions that would have put them at increased risk.

"Everything about this virus is unpredictable," Dr. David Kimberlin, an infectious disease pediatrician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told NPR. "And we need to do everything we can to protect ourselves and to protect our children against what this virus is very capable of doing."

3. What side effects can be expected?

Side effects of pediatric COVID-19 vaccinations are similar to those adults have experienced with mild symptoms, the most common of which is a sore arm, according to the CDC.

4. How do the kid- and adult-sized vaccines differ?

Children, like adults, get two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, three weeks apart, and achieve full protection two weeks after the final dose. Children’s doses are a third of the size of the doses for teenagers and adults.

The children’s vaccine uses a new formulation that prolongs the life of the vaccine in pharmacy refrigerators. It also has a new ingredient, a Tris buffer, that has been to stabilize other vaccines and medicines.

• ‘Not Quite On Board': Parents A Tough Sell On COVID-19 Shots For Teens

Otherwise, the manufacturing process of mRNA active ingredient and the lipid nanoparticle is "completely unchanged,” Pfizer vice president of pharmaceutical research and development Nicholas Warne told FDA outside advisers last month.

5. There’s plenty of vaccine to go around.

The federal government promises there’s enough kid-sized COVID-19 vaccine to innoculate 28 million kids ages 5-11 at pediatricians’ offices, pharmacies, hospitals, schools and health clinics.

"This is not going to be 'The Hunger Games,'" Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicago's public health commissioner, told The Associated Press, referring to the chaotic early national rollout of adult vaccines nearly a year ago. Chicago expected to have nearly enough vaccine in just the first week for nearly half of its 210,000 school-age children, and many more doses later on.

"Our goal is to be ready, have a calm rollout,'' Arwady said.

Extra: Sentiment Differs Around The Country

Patch editors in multiple states recently surveyed readers about whether they’ll get their kids vaccinated. Read on to see some of the regional differences:

• California: Patch Survey
• Florida: Patch Survey
• Georgia: Patch Survey
• Illinois: Patch Survey
• Maryland: Patch Survey
• Massachusetts: Patch Survey
• Virginia: Patch Survey

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

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