After school closures, disrupted lives, some leap at chance to get kids 5 and up vaccinated
Matt and Allison Johnson of Coral Gables, both in their 40s, got vaccinated against COVID-19 in April, after their age group became eligible. Their two sons, ages 8 and 10, just became eligible this past week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave final clearance to a vaccine for children ages 5 to 11.
The Johnsons’ eldest son, Thorston, already had COVID-19 earlier this year. Thorston was asymptomatic, Matt Johnson said, but he still had to stay home from school for two weeks.
A few weeks after he returned to class, though, Thorston was exposed to an infected classmate, which meant that he had to quarantine at home for 10 days even though he had recovered from the disease.
Being unvaccinated meant Thorston had to miss even more school — after a year of remote learning at home due to the pandemic.
So when the opportunity arose to vaccinate their children last week, the Johnsons jumped at the chance. They made an appointment at their local pharmacy, and took Thorston and his younger brother, Leo, to get the shot.
Even though their children are young, and therefore less likely to have severe illness from COVID-19, the Johnsons know their sons could still spread the disease to others, including grandparents and teachers, Matt Johnson said.
“It’s important for me, just to make sure to end this pandemic,” he said. “So they can go back to having as much normalcy as possible is really the greatest thing.”
The pandemic has been more than an inconvenience in the Johnsons’ lives. Matt Johnson’s grandmother died of the disease in December.
About 2.8 million children younger than 12 live in Florida, according to the health department, though that number includes those younger than 5, who are not yet eligible for a vaccine.
By vaccinating younger children, physicians and public health officials hope to prevent a resurgence of the virus in the winter and reduce the chances that a new variant will emerge and trigger another wave.
Holidays are also approaching, and though last Tuesday’s age-group approval was too late for newly eligible children to be fully vaccinated in time for Thanksgiving, they will be immunized in time for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and other winter holidays.
Melissa Philips Sathe, 44, of Cooper City, said she has been waiting practically since the pandemic began for a vaccine.
“I got in line very quickly to get my own vaccine,” said Sathe, who got a shot in March. Last week, she made appointments for her newly eligible children to get vaccinated, too.
“I have two children, 7 and 9, and we live in close proximity to all of their grandparents, and we enjoy visiting with them,” she said. “So my primary reason for getting it is just to help stop the community spread and not spread it to the grandparents.
Nearly half of 12- to 17-year-olds vaccinated
Dr. Lisa Gwynn, a pediatrician with the University of Miami Health System, oversees a mobile pediatric vaccination program for UHealth that provides childhood immunizations to underserved populations through churches, schools and community health centers in Miami-Dade. The program has been administering the COVID-19 vaccine to 12- to 17-year-olds since they became eligible in May.
“Things have been going great,” Gwynn said. “The biggest challenge is we sort of hit a wall in terms of acceptance, getting kids immunized. Those parents who wanted their kids vaccinated have done so.”
Nationwide, about 49% of 12- to 17-year-olds have been fully vaccinated as of Nov. 3, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Gwynn is president of the Florida Chapter of the AAP, which recommends the vaccine for all eligible children.
“The vaccine rates were going up and now it’s just plateaued and it’s not going anywhere,” she said. “We’re not making headway.”
Gwynn said pediatricians and public health officials will hit a similar wall with the newly eligible children.
“We’ve got work to do, but that’s OK,” she said. “This is what we do in pediatrics: talk to parents and inform them so they can make an informed decision.”
Dr. Marcos Mestre, medical director for Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, said he saw a bump in COVID-19 vaccinations among pediatric patients in July and August when the more contagious delta variant was fueling a surge in cases and hospitalizations. After the surge began to recede, demand dwindled.
“There’s going to be that hesitancy, that sense that, ‘I don’t need it. I’ll just wait, maybe until it gets back again. And just the general sense of hesitancy with this 5- to 11-year-old range that generally does well,” he said. “That’s the truth. But it’s not just for the protection of the child. It’s for the protection of our community in general.”
Kids’ COVID hospitalizations surged in summer
During a six-week period from late June to mid-August, COVID-19 hospitalizations among children and adolescents increased five-fold as the delta variant surged in Florida and elsewhere. Children under 12, who were not eligible for the vaccine, made up 2.4% of all hospitalizations in the country at the peak in mid-August.
The CDC estimates that 1.9 million children 5 to 11 years old have had a case of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March 2020, including 8,300 who have been hospitalized and 94 who have died from the disease.
In Florida, the health department has confirmed 331,000 cases among children younger than 12. At least 29 children younger than 16 have died of COVID-19 in Florida.
Gwynn, the UHealth pediatrician, said kids “absolutely” suffer less than adults with COVID-19. But she said that perspective risks overlooking the broader purpose of a vaccination campaign.
“We’ve gotten into a very selfish mode these days, not thinking about our neighbor, not thinking about our family members,” she said.
Gwynn emphasized that many people receive treatment for cancer or autoimmune disorders or HIV, and may have weaker immune systems. They depend on others getting vaccinated for protection, she said.
For those parents concerned about safety and effectiveness, the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel found the Pfizer shot did well in both areas.
Similar to what was seen in adult vaccine trials, vaccination was nearly 91% effective in preventing COVID-19 among children aged 5 to 11 years. In clinical trials, vaccine side effects were mild.
The study was not large enough, though, to assess the risk of adverse effects, such as myocarditis and pericarditis that have been observed in young men 18 to 25-years-old after receiving one of the two mRNA vaccines, which are made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle while pericarditis is inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart.
Dr. Carlo Michel Zeidenweber, a pediatric cardiologist at West Boca Medical Center in Boca Raton, said the number of patients who experience myocarditis or pericarditis as a result of the vaccine are “few and far between.”
“It’s very rare,” he said. “If I see 100 patients with COVID-19 in the hospital, I’ve only seen one or two and it resolved and they went home. It was brief and they didn’t require any special treatment, certainly not as bad as the really bad cases of myocarditis that you see with COVID.”
The federal government plans to distribute the vaccines to 25,000 pediatrician offices and 100 children’s hospitals nationwide, as well as sending doses to pharmacies and other providers.
Vaccines at doctors’ offices, pharmacies, children’s hospitals
Jeff Zients, coronavirus advisor to the White House,
directed parents to vaccines.gov to find locations where their children can get vaccinated.
“Starting the week of Nov. 8, the kids’ vaccination program will be fully up and running,” he said.
Florida’s Department of Health would not say how many shots the state had pre-ordered from the federal government or explain the agency’s plan for distributing the vaccine and ensuring it reaches vulnerable populations.
“The Department will continue to monitor developments as the federal government makes decisions regarding COVID-19 vaccination eligibility,” said Weesam Khoury, communications director. “The State of Florida has always guaranteed vaccines are widely available — but they will not be mandated.”
For some South Florida parents, the health department’s low profile during the rollout of vaccines for children 5 to 11 is perplexing.
Daniel Sachar, 45, of South Miami-Dade, said he saw news coverage and spoke with friends whose newly eligible children were getting vaccinated on Wednesday in Connecticut and New York, and he wondered why Florida wasn’t doing the same.
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“It seems like there aren’t any organized efforts to hold clinics, or to have it ready to go in an organized way, other than some Walgreens and CVS stores over the weekend,” he said. “It’s just surprising.”
Sachar was able to make an appointment online for his daughters, both younger than 12, to get vaccinated at a local pharmacy on Saturday.
The vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds will be administered with smaller needles and in smaller doses — two shots, three weeks apart.
Brian McKee, pharmacy director for Memorial Healthcare System, which includes Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, said he expected that hospital staff would begin providing the shots this week.
Joe DiMaggio staff will administer the vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the same clinic the hospital uses to give shots to children 12 to 17-years-old.
McKee said the hospital pre-ordered 500 doses for the first week, anticipating that demand would start slowly.
Some parents have heard rumors about the vaccine on social media or online, and they may not know whom to trust, said Dr. Kenia Martinez, a pediatrician with Community Health of South Florida or CHI Inc., a federally qualified health center in South Miami-Dade that focuses on underserved populations.
CHI will be providing the vaccine to 5- to 11-year-olds when they come in for annual visits and immunizations, Martinez said. The health center will also partner with schools to provide shots to students and take the vaccine into underserved neighborhoods using vans and nurses.
Martinez, who is vaccinated, said misinformation is a significant cause of hesitancy among parents she has encountered.
“I have a 5-year-old. As soon as it’s available for my 5-year-old, he’s going to get it too,” she said.
“The chances of him getting really sick with COVID are not that huge, but the chances of him getting it and spreading it to other people like my dad, that’s big.”
This story was originally published November 8, 2021 at 8:57 AM.
