Some parents say they are eager to get their kids the Covid vaccine, while others have their reservations about it. One mother tells me why she thinks it’s important to get her children vaccinated.
“What are you all doing here today?”
“Getting my four-year-old her first COVID vaccine.”
Children as young as six months old can now get the covid vaccine.
The FDA granted emergency use authorization in June to Pfizer’s vaccine for kids six months to five years old and to Moderna’s for kids six months to six years old.
The Census Bureau estimates roughly 19 million Americans fall into this age group.
Deanna Martin a Pa at Geisinger’s Grays Woods facility tells me many parents have misconceptions about the Covid vaccine.
“So, a lot of parents really have a lot of concerns that this vaccine is still so new on the market. And that’s probably one of the biggest reasons that we see some hesitancy about getting the vaccine.”
“When you look at it, this vaccine has been tested so much more than a lot of the vaccines that we’ve had. You know, when you look at the measles, mumps, and rubella, those were tested over long periods of time with a smaller sample. But with the COVID vaccine, it was actually tested on a large number of people.”
Emilee Grupp took her 4 year old daughter Niviene to the facility for her Covid vaccine, I asked her what led her to make the decision.
“That’s multifactorial, but mostly, as a nurse, I have seen how not being vaccinated, vaccinated it negative impacts people. I’ve seen, unfortunately, I’ve seen people die from having had COVID and it’s, uh, it, it’s just very important for me to maintain health. I have five children total, so, keeping everybody healthy is really important, for one.”
Some skeptics bring up potential side effects of the vaccine. However Martin tells me the kids are actually tolerating the vaccine better than the adults did.
“With the adults, especially if they had had COVID, you know, with their first vaccine, they got a lot of fevers and body aches and really, really run down if they hadn’t had COVID their second vaccine, they just, they really felt like that got hit pretty hard. The kids were not seeing that, you know, yes, they might be a little bit achy or not quite themselves. And we will have the occasional kids that will get a little bit of a fever from it. But nowhere near the same kind of response of just really feeling wiped out like the adults did.”
Working in health care Grupp tells me she’s seen how deadly Covid can get.
“I mean, they should obviously speak with their pediatricians first and see if it’s right for them. But I do recommend that being a, you know, a nurse — and again, seeing how not being vaccinated can affect people, I would definitely recommend it.”
For the record, little Neviene got a princess sticker as a reward afterward, so she was quite pleased.
