My youngest got his COVID vaccine yesterday and we are officially on our way to being a fully vaccinated house. Whew, anyone feel a huge sense of breathing again? It was fairly emotional hearing how several of his buddies also got vaccinated. I also saw from a Twitter friend that her child is scared of needles. But, he wrote his best friend’s name on a post-it note, took it with him to the clinic, and said his buddy’s name over and over while getting his vaccine. Why? His best friend is high-risk and he knew the connection of how his vaccine would protect his buddy.
Hi, I appreciate the information you have provided and your work in putting out information that is accurate. However, I was hoping you would provide more scientific backing of the vaccines for 5-11 years old beyond what the CDC reports. Can you provide other scientific resources?
Also, can you speak to the argument going around about how more kids are being hospitalized from myocarditis following the vaccine vs covid itself? Can you provide some medical research that supports your view? I want to be done this pandemic just as much as anyone else, but I'm struggling with the risk vs benefit when it comes to my kids. What about other modes of treatment for Covid? If we know that monoclonal antibody treatment is effective, why isn't this being promoted more? Especially if the risk vs benefit ratio is potentially higher with this form of treatment versus the vaccine?
Hi Emily! I love your work. I’m a science writer and you are my hero! Can you (or have you) posted a screenshot with the Twitter comment referenced in this post? Without identifiers? I’d like to quote it.
Can you speak to kids with autoimmune diseases? I have a 5 yr old daughter with Alopecia and nut allergies and a 10 yr old with nut allergies. My wife is concerned about the vaccine over-stimulating already overactive immune systems. She is hesitant to get them vaccinated because they had Covid in September. Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.
Such good info - our 11 year and od got his first dose last week. He turns 12 this week so we were waiting for the adult dose but his pediatrician recommended the lower dose so we went with it. Now I’m having misgivings and am wondering if he should have had the adult dose and/or if getting the adult dose for his second shot would be prudent. Our pediatrician has been in a stance of “don’t worry about it” throughout the pandemic even though my son has asthma and we’ve felt isolated in decision making. Any data on a scenario like this? Thank you!
I previously asked this question on your October 25 post but you may have missed that since I posted after the fact or (more likely) my question was too vague the first time around. My apologies for double-posting.
I'm hearing more and more from those of my friends who are still unvaccinated that getting an mRNA vaccine is dangerous because it impairs the body's natural immune response, in particular causing a vaccinated person to be less able to mount an immune response to any future variants (but also potentially even to the current variant after the vaccine's effects wear off, and potentially also to other related viruses). In other words, the claim is that mRNA shots might be helpful in the short term, but in the long term they make the situation worse by increasing the severity of future infections and therefore (here's where I start hearing conspiracy theories) make us all dependent on annual boosters indefinitely.
Can you shed any light on this, please? Especially as someone who is already immune-compromised and both my wife and I are trying to decide whether to get our booster shots.
Thanks so much!
And one more question, specific to this current post: how do you respond to someone who says "1 million vaccines for kids only preventing 2-3 deaths is not worthwhile" or "66 deaths in children in one year is not significant enough to merit another vaccine with potential long-term side effects that haven't been studied yet"?
I'm a new subscriber, but a longtime reader on Facebook! I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on two concerns about the vaccine for kids that my husband has raised. We have three kids, and our two teenagers are vaccinated but my husband is very hesitant to get our 7 year old vaccinated. He's knee deep in the literature and conspiracies around it (sigh...), and I feel like much of the advice for vaccine hesitant people is pitched at a much simpler level. His objections are detailed and specific, and I'm exhausted trying to respond to them so I thought I'd ask for thoughts and advice on his two main concerns.
First, how do we know the trials were big enough to find most side effects? Even to me (a very vaccine enthusiastic person!), the trials do seem a bit small. Yes, we have the adult and adolescent trials, but kids aren’t just mini-adults. For example, we saw side effects that were more prevalent in the adolescent trials – myocarditis is more common there, for example – so how do we know there aren’t other side effects that will turn out to be more common in kids, even if they didn’t come up in the trials. (And ironically, our teens were in the Pfizer teen trial, so we know a lot about how the trials work! The concern here is about sample sizes and new side effects for kids).
Second, how do we know there won’t be long-term effects? I keep hearing that vaccines have never had side effects that pop up years later, but this is a new technology, so the fact that it hasn’t happened before with older technologies doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t happen with this technology. Again, I'm not especially worried about it personally, but I don't know how to counter this argument.
I don’t know if I’ll convince him, but I’m trying hard!
Hi, I appreciate the information you have provided and your work in putting out information that is accurate. However, I was hoping you would provide more scientific backing of the vaccines for 5-11 years old beyond what the CDC reports. Can you provide other scientific resources?
Also, can you speak to the argument going around about how more kids are being hospitalized from myocarditis following the vaccine vs covid itself? Can you provide some medical research that supports your view? I want to be done this pandemic just as much as anyone else, but I'm struggling with the risk vs benefit when it comes to my kids. What about other modes of treatment for Covid? If we know that monoclonal antibody treatment is effective, why isn't this being promoted more? Especially if the risk vs benefit ratio is potentially higher with this form of treatment versus the vaccine?
Hi Emily! I love your work. I’m a science writer and you are my hero! Can you (or have you) posted a screenshot with the Twitter comment referenced in this post? Without identifiers? I’d like to quote it.
Can you speak to kids with autoimmune diseases? I have a 5 yr old daughter with Alopecia and nut allergies and a 10 yr old with nut allergies. My wife is concerned about the vaccine over-stimulating already overactive immune systems. She is hesitant to get them vaccinated because they had Covid in September. Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.
Such good info - our 11 year and od got his first dose last week. He turns 12 this week so we were waiting for the adult dose but his pediatrician recommended the lower dose so we went with it. Now I’m having misgivings and am wondering if he should have had the adult dose and/or if getting the adult dose for his second shot would be prudent. Our pediatrician has been in a stance of “don’t worry about it” throughout the pandemic even though my son has asthma and we’ve felt isolated in decision making. Any data on a scenario like this? Thank you!
Hi Dr. Smith,
I previously asked this question on your October 25 post but you may have missed that since I posted after the fact or (more likely) my question was too vague the first time around. My apologies for double-posting.
I'm hearing more and more from those of my friends who are still unvaccinated that getting an mRNA vaccine is dangerous because it impairs the body's natural immune response, in particular causing a vaccinated person to be less able to mount an immune response to any future variants (but also potentially even to the current variant after the vaccine's effects wear off, and potentially also to other related viruses). In other words, the claim is that mRNA shots might be helpful in the short term, but in the long term they make the situation worse by increasing the severity of future infections and therefore (here's where I start hearing conspiracy theories) make us all dependent on annual boosters indefinitely.
I hear, in particular, this study being cited:
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/10/2056/htm
Can you shed any light on this, please? Especially as someone who is already immune-compromised and both my wife and I are trying to decide whether to get our booster shots.
Thanks so much!
And one more question, specific to this current post: how do you respond to someone who says "1 million vaccines for kids only preventing 2-3 deaths is not worthwhile" or "66 deaths in children in one year is not significant enough to merit another vaccine with potential long-term side effects that haven't been studied yet"?
I'm a new subscriber, but a longtime reader on Facebook! I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on two concerns about the vaccine for kids that my husband has raised. We have three kids, and our two teenagers are vaccinated but my husband is very hesitant to get our 7 year old vaccinated. He's knee deep in the literature and conspiracies around it (sigh...), and I feel like much of the advice for vaccine hesitant people is pitched at a much simpler level. His objections are detailed and specific, and I'm exhausted trying to respond to them so I thought I'd ask for thoughts and advice on his two main concerns.
First, how do we know the trials were big enough to find most side effects? Even to me (a very vaccine enthusiastic person!), the trials do seem a bit small. Yes, we have the adult and adolescent trials, but kids aren’t just mini-adults. For example, we saw side effects that were more prevalent in the adolescent trials – myocarditis is more common there, for example – so how do we know there aren’t other side effects that will turn out to be more common in kids, even if they didn’t come up in the trials. (And ironically, our teens were in the Pfizer teen trial, so we know a lot about how the trials work! The concern here is about sample sizes and new side effects for kids).
Second, how do we know there won’t be long-term effects? I keep hearing that vaccines have never had side effects that pop up years later, but this is a new technology, so the fact that it hasn’t happened before with older technologies doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t happen with this technology. Again, I'm not especially worried about it personally, but I don't know how to counter this argument.
I don’t know if I’ll convince him, but I’m trying hard!