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Alfredo Torres, a professor of microbiology and immunology from Texas, sent a message on Wednesday to parents who might be reluctant to have their children vaccinated against Covid-19: go ahead.
Torres not only volunteered for a Pfizer vaccine clinical trial; the same was true for her 14-year-old son.
“After that his arm was a bit sore, he was a bit tired, which happens to most people after getting the vaccine,” Torres said. “But other than that, he was doing perfectly fine. So my message to parents who might be affected is very simple: we need to vaccinate as many people as possible to end this pandemic, and that also means vaccinating children.”
“This vaccine is safe for children,” said Torres, who teaches in the medical branch of the University of Texas at Galveston.
Pfizer said on Wednesday that its Covid-19 vaccine is 100% safe and effective in preventing disease in adolescents aged 12 to 15.
“After I volunteered, he immediately said he wanted to volunteer too,” Torres said of his son. “I’m very proud.”
Torres is far from the only parent to applaud Pfizer’s announcement. Some of the loudest applause has come from parents of high-risk children who have already been vaccinated.
Paige Wallis of Malden, Mass., Was relieved after her 16-year-old autistic daughter Sylvie received her first injection of Pfizer last week.
“She just turned 16 earlier this month and qualified to be at high risk – a rare genetic condition with birth defects and intellectual disability,” Wallis said.
Wallis, 44, said she had no qualms because her family is pro-vaccine. Her father and sister are polio survivors. But she said she was also keen to read the opposing views before deciding to vaccinate Sylvie.
“I was not worried, as all of our reputable scientific sources have affirmed its overall safety and effectiveness,” she said. “She has only had the first vax so far and has expressed no particular discomfort or signs of illness.”
Wallis said that since the start of the pandemic, she has insisted on distance schooling for Sylvie, as well as her 8-year-old son Julian.
“Since Sylvie is having her first shot and we know it’s already pretty effective, we decided to send her” full time, “Wallis said. “We are going to put it in full [time] after his second hit. The new report gives me hope that my almost 9-year-old child will soon also be able to receive his vax. “
Kelley Paradis of Wrentham, Massachusetts, said she was also thrilled with the positive news from Pfizer.
“My 14-year-old son has not yet signed up for the vaccine,” said Paradis, 43. “I just learned this morning that they have now found the Pfizer vaccine to be safe for their age group.
“I was very worried that my son would not be able to get the vaccine, because I am one of those who really fear and respect the dangers of Covid,” Paradis added. “Everyone else in the family would have been eligible in the coming months except him, and that worried me.”
Paradis said her 18-year-old daughter Madeleine worked in a nursing home and was vaccinated in January.
“What a relief for our family. Despite their use of a lot of PPE, we were concerned about their risk of exposure every day,” said Paradis, referring to personal protective equipment.
Thirty-five percent of 1,001 parents of public school students (K-12) who took part in a National Parents Union survey in January said they wanted their children to be immunized immediately, while 25% ticked “Yes, but not right away”, and 22% said they were categorically opposed to vaccinating their children against Covid-19.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said children as young as first graders may be able to get vaccinated by the start of the next school year in September. But many American parents aren’t eager to get their kids – or themselves, for that matter, vaccinated.
“I think I’d like to see more studies on this,” said Angelina Vicknair, a Louisiana mother of 6 and 9-year-old sons, before Pfizer’s announcement at a roundtable on vaccinations against Covid-19 for sponsored children. By NBC affiliate WDSU of New Orleans. “Personally, I haven’t received the vaccine yet, so I prefer to wait.”
Seleigh Taylor, a school administrator with girls ages 4 and 9, said during the same discussion that she was vaccinated but was in no rush to get her daughters vaccinated.
“They’ve had adverse reactions to their vaccinations before, so we kind of already have an alternative vaccination schedule,” Taylor said. “With that and their personal health, I felt we were waiting a bit, because we usually take time when it comes to vaccinations.”
A recent survey of 18,000 mothers and pregnant women in 16 countries, conducted by researchers at the TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard, found that a large majority would be willing to have their children vaccinated. But moms in the United States, Russia and Australia were the most reluctant to do so.
“This phenomenon in the United States and Russia could be due to the rejection of COVID-19,” the researchers speculated.
Who are the resistant parents? If the results of a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey are any indication, they’re more likely to be Republicans or rural areas or both.
Still, after a year of home schooling and other restrictions in the event of a pandemic, legions of parents and students are unwilling to wait.
Dr Sunanda Gaur, director of the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School clinical research center in New Jersey, said that after the news was announced that the center would start testing Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines in children, he began to receive calls from parents. who wanted to enroll their children in clinical trials.
“Word of mouth that we’re going to study has come out,” Gaur told NJ Spotlight News. “We actually heard parents say that they were really interested, especially teenagers, in taking them to school. We were quite surprised.”
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