The Pfizer COVID-19 shot could be in the arms of kids ages 5 to 11 by early November, pending authorization from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On Tuesday, an FDA advisory panel will discuss the vaccine for kids, most likely addressing questions about COVID-19 risks for young kids.
Children run a significantly lower risk than older people of getting seriously ill from COVID-19. By some measures, the risks for unvaccinated kids look similar to the risks for vaccinated people in their 50s, wrote journalist David Leonhardt of The New York Times.
Still, at least 708 youngsters in the U.S. have died from the virus, most of them ages 5 to 18, according to the CDC.
In August and September, COVID-19 ranked as the sixth leading cause of death for children ages 5 to 14, according to an analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Six million U.S. children have been infected, 1 million of them since early September amid the spread of the more contagious delta variant, the American Academy of Pediatrics says.
“While children are less likely to develop severe illness from COVID-19, they are still at risk. In early September, children accounted for nearly 30% of coronavirus cases, and the highly contagious delta variant has sent more children into hospitals and intensive care units in the past few weeks than at any other time during the pandemic,” wrote journalists Tara Parker-Pope and Dani Blum of The New York Times.
“Unvaccinated children, even if they do not become ill, can spread the virus to family members, teachers and others they interact with regularly, including grandparents or others who are at higher risk for severe disease or death,” Parker-Pope and Blum wrote.
Pediatric hospitalizations for COVID-19 rose over the summer as the delta variant spread across the country, increasing nearly five-fold, according to a CDC study.
“When this pandemic started, there was this myth that kids don’t get sick, die or get hospitalized,” Dr. Sangeeta Elhence, a pediatrician at Lake Lewisville Pediatrics, told The Dallas Morning News last week. “But the delta variant has totally changed that.”
“Children are still becoming infected because we have not implemented safety protocols adequately or equitably throughout the country,” said Cecilia Tomori, the director of global public health and community health at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. “Vaccination is the best protection that the children themselves will have.”
Health officials believe that expanding the vaccine drive will not only curb the alarming number of infections in children but also reduce the spread to vulnerable adults.
Erin Carlson, the director of graduate public health programs at the University of Texas at Arlington, told The News that children can transmit to other members of their household, including their caregivers. And that can have tragic consequences: A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics reported that more than 140,000 U.S. children, or about 1 in 500 children, have lost a caregiver during the pandemic.
“It’s very important to slow that chain of transmission by getting [kids] vaccinated,” Carlson said.
Vaccinating children could also help schools stay open and kids get back on track academically, and contribute to the nation’s recovery from the pandemic, the Associated Press reported.
