On Tuesday, doctors, nurses and other health care workers across the United States began giving the Covid-19 vaccine to children 6 months to 5 years old, the last group of Americans with access to the vaccines. injection.
It’s a major milestone in the coronavirus pandemic, 18 long months after adults first started getting vaccinated against the virus. But feedback has been noticeably muted from parents, with little sign of excitement and long lines to celebrate previous vaccine deployments.
One April poll shows that less than one-fifth of parents with children under the age of five are eager to get the shot right away. Early adopters in this age group seem to be the outliers.
At 9 a.m., Dayton Children’s Hospital in Ohio became one of the first sites to immunize the youngest children, with a three-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for all ages. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also endorsed a second option for young children, two doses protocol from Moderna.
Brian Wentzel, 38, with his 2-year-old son, Bodhi, at 9:15 a.m. Bodhi hugged a small stuffed dog and bravely shot it in the leg. His mother is a doctor at the hospital.
Mr Wentzel said: ‘It’s important to get him vaccinated. “It’s extremely effective in preventing serious illness.”
In many places, including Florida, New York, Boston and Los Angeles, vaccines are not yet widely available. Public health websites show few or no appointments for this age group. Some pediatricians’ offices report that they have yet to receive the shots.
However, the appeal from families is limited. The reasons for parental hesitancy toward vaccines are manifold. Two years after the pandemic, many families have resigned themselves to the virus, and the vast majority of American children have been infected, most with only mild symptoms.
At the White House on Tuesday afternoon, President Biden called it a “spectacular step forward” in the nation’s pandemic response. He and the first lady, Jill Biden, also visited a vaccination clinic in Washington DC in the early afternoon.
While vaccines are still highly effective at protecting against severe illness and death, they have become less effective at preventing infections caused by mutated viruses, leading to frustration and some skepticism towards injections from the public. Some parents have been hit with widespread misinformation about the risks of the shots, while others are concerned about rare side effects, or simply don’t want their child to be among those. Get the new vaccine first.
That is the case although parents and young children have endured some of the longest-running educational and public health restrictions, due to their lack of access to vaccines. And that’s especially true in liberal states and cities, which have taken a more cautious approach to the virus.
Many childcare centers and preschools still require masks and prolonged isolation for children who have been in close contact with the virus, although K-12 schools have generally lifted those precautions. Parents are exhausted after years of disrupted routines and report that their children have never been able to attend school or socialize under normal circumstances.
However, the overall childhood vaccine campaign has disappointed many public health experts. Less than 30 percent of children ages 5 to 11 have received two shots.
At a coffee shop in West St. Paul, Minn., Jen Wilkerson, 28, a bartender, said she doesn’t plan to vaccinate her son Jaxson, 4, even though she has been vaccinated.
She said she was worried after he developed a lump on his leg after two previous vaccinations for other illnesses, and recalled that Jaxson wasn’t sick when she contracted Covid-19 last year.
“He was a little window licker,” she said. “Given how strong his immune system is, I don’t feel the need to vaccinate him right now. I’m waiting for him to grow old. I’ll wait until he’s 10 or so.”
In Durant, Miss., Monique Moore, 39, a teacher, said she would wait a few months for her 4-year-old son, Rashun, turn 5 years old before getting him vaccinated.
“I didn’t want him in the first batch to do it,” she said, “but I didn’t want to do it either.”
Other parents say that vaccinations will allow them to finally get through a difficult period of life.
In Brookline, Mass., 40-year-old Jenn Erickson quit her job when her son Miro was born at the start of the pandemic. She said there was “no hesitation” about vaccinating the boy, which would allow her to confidently enroll her son in daycare while she returns to work.
“It seems like a lot of the world has moved on without us,” Ms. Erickson said. “Children born during the pandemic are finally protected. There will need to be a big celebration for the parents who have endured this great stress. “
Kevin Williams, Christina Capecchi, Ellen B. Meacham, Catherine McGloin and Adeel Hassan contribution report.
