COVID-19 vaccines for children aged five to 11 will begin on Monday in B.C.
Experts like Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry are pushing hard for all of B.C.’s 350,000 children between the ages of five and 11 to be vaccinated. This push is probably just in time, since COVID-19 is once again surging in Europe and cases in children are rising in the United States.
Cases in children in B.C. spiked after schools opened this fall, with nearly 3,000 exposure notifications being sent home from 830 schools across the province. Nearly half (45 per cent) of all schools have had at least one case. There have been 382 COVID-19 clusters in 217 schools this fall, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control reports. The median size of a cluster is three cases.
There have been six outbreaks so far in this third school year to have been disrupted by the pandemic. An outbreak is larger than a cluster – the number of cases range from 35 to 62 – and requires the use of additional measures such as remote learning, Henry said.
“School is not yet normal. I don't need to say that to anyone with children in schools,” Henry says. “We are going to be living with this virus for some time, in terms of years.”
Fortunately, school-age children don’t usually get seriously ill with COVID-19, a factor that may weigh against vaccination in their parents’ minds. However, they can certainly bring the virus home to their parents or grandparents, who may be vulnerable.
Up to Nov. 6, there have been 39,549 COVID-19 cases in people in B.C. 19 or younger. Of those, 276 have been hospitalized, 40 have been in critical care and two have died. For the same time period, there have been 19 confirmed cases of Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome in children (MIS-C), a rare but serious complication of COVID-19.
The risk of getting COVID-19 right now in B.C. is 10 times higher for children who are not vaccinated than for those who are vaccinated, Henry said. Among children older than 12 who are already eligible for vaccination, there have been no hospitalizations in vaccinated children, but 37 unvaccinated children have been hospitalized.
Here’s where it gets down to the nitty-gritty – so far in B.C., there have been 133 adverse events after COVID-19 shots among 12-to 17-year-old children, which is 26.1 per 100,000 doses, the BCCDC reports. Of these, 14 were serious enough to send the child to hospital, but all of those children have since been discharged. Most of the adverse events were allergic reactions, Henry said.
So the vaccine is not risk-free. But of course, COVID-19 is not risk-free either.
We’ve all had to roll up our sleeves and take a shot for the sake of others. It’s felt a little bit like a giant science experiment that the survival of our species is dependent upon. But there really is no alternative.
There will be special “family clinics” and even the clinics that are open to everyone will have a special channel for youngsters, to make sure they feel comfortable, said Dr. Penny Ballem, who is leading B.C.’s COVID-19 vaccination effort.
Kids will be given their two doses eight weeks apart and the province expects everyone to have their turn by the end of January. Parents will have to give verbal consent and if one sibling has an appointment, others can join in to get their vaccine as well, Ballem said.
A recent survey found that about one-quarter of parents were not planning to vaccinate their children, while 58 per cent were ready to have them vaccinated right away and another 18 per cent planned to wait a while, Ballem said.
I never hesitated to vaccinate my children – when they were children – against other dread diseases like polio, diphtheria, measles, mumps, or rubella. And I signed up for my shots as soon as I was eligible. But I also understand that not everyone is ready to trust a new vaccine on their little ones.
Parents can take some comfort in knowing that millions of COVID-19 vaccines have been given worldwide, mostly without adverse effects.
While it may be a bitter pill, getting children vaccinated against COVID-19 should bring us all one step closer to ending the pandemic.
Tracy Sherlock is a freelance journalist who writes about education and social issues. Read her blog or email her tracy.sherlock@gmail.com.
