After CDC approval, LDH urging COVID-19 vaccines for kids 5-11

Andrew Capps, Lafayette Daily Advertiser
·3 min read

Louisiana’s Department of Health is urging parents to get kids ages 5-11 vaccinated for COVID-19 following recent approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the holiday season begins.

The CDC recommended the two shot Pfizer-BioNTech for children 5-11 on Nov. 2 at one-third of the dosage given to older children and adults.

The vaccine still confers a comparably high level of immunity from COVID-19 to children at the lower dose as it does to adults at the full dose, according to LDH’s Regional Health Director for Acadiana Dr. Tina Stefanksi.

“The vaccine is about 91% effective in preventing COVID-19 among children 5 to 11. So it’s very effective even at that smaller dose,” Stefanksi said.

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While the rate of critical illness from COVID-19 is lower among kids 5-11 than other age groups, the virus still has the potential to hospitalize and kill young children.

“Across the country since the beginning of the pandemic, in the 5- to 11-year-old age group, there have been 94 deaths in children and over 8,000 hospitalizations,” Stefanski said.

“Those are preventable with vaccination, so thankfully now we have a vaccine for that age group.”

Because kids more frequently have asymptomatic cases of COVID-19, they are also more likely to spread it to older people, like parents and grandparents, without knowing that they have the virus, which presents a particular threat to public health as families gather for the second year holiday celebrations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As people get older, their immune systems are not as strong. And so they might not have that 90% protection from a vaccine that someone younger might,” Stefanksi said.

“We want to make sure older people get their booster dose because we know that that's going to help boost their immunity. But an extra level of protection is to surround them with people who are vaccinated, including those kids who might be asymptomatic spreaders.”

Dr. Tina Stefanski – Regional Medical Director, Office of Public Health in Acadiana. Louisiana's Department of Health held a free COVID-19 vaccine clinic in Broussard Saturday morning at the Wat Thammarattanaram Lao Buddhist Temple to help expand vaccine access and overcome hesitancy as the state looks to increase the share of residents who are vaccinated for COVID-19 after ranking among the lowest per capita in vaccination rates among states across the country. Saturday, April 10, 2021.

Stefanski, a pediatrician by practice, said parents should talk to their children’s doctors about the vaccine if they have concerns, particularly about potential allergies to some of its ingredients, which are found in other medicines.

She also noted that concerns have been about myocarditis episodes in boys ages 5-11 who have taken the vaccine, but that those cases have occurred at a rate of just 54 instances per million vaccinations, which is far lower than rates of myocarditis among boys in that age group who have contracted COVID-19.

“When you weigh that against a vaccine that has been administered to over 400 million people with good safety profiles and is effective at preventing cases of COVID-19, that's what we want parents to know,” Stefanski said.

“These are decisions that were made after lots of reviews of safety data. All of this has contemplated risks and benefits, and every professional organization continues to strongly recommend this vaccination for children, including the American Academy of Pediatrics.”

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This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: After CDC approval, LDH urging COVID-19 vaccines for kids 5-11