AUGUSTA, Ga. – As more people get vaccinated, parents, it may have you wondering if you want your children to get the vaccine when it’s time.
Trials are starting up across the country, testing to find out how the COVID-19 vaccines work in kids. We went to our local hospitals to find out what they’ve seen so far.
The Children’s Hospital of Georgia won’t be participating in any vaccine trials with children. But the experts here think the vaccine will play a key role in herd immunity.
“As a mom, I would definitely, you know, I’m interested. My interest is peaked.”
Christan Barnett has three kids, and she even works in the medical field. But she’s waiting on the data before making any decisions to let her kids get the vaccine.
“I think a lot of people are going to ask, ‘Well, why? Kids aren’t getting it. My kid has never had it. Why should I get it?’” She said.
So, we asked a doctor at AU Health.
“The primary reason is not for their own protection.”
Dr. James Wilde is a pediatric doctor, and he says it’s likely the vaccines will be fine for kids.
“Do I think that the COVID vaccine is going to have a major impact on children? No, I don’t. Because covid itself doesn’t have a major impact on kids,” he said.
Moderna is currently testing nearly 7,000 kids in their trials, while Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are working on similar efforts.
These trials are mostly focused on safety and effectiveness.
“The primary benefit of getting the kids vaccinated is so the COVID virus can’t be transmitted from them to more vulnerable people,” Wilde explained.
And while many children do not have symptoms with COVID-19, some do. And they can develop an even more rare condition called MIS-C.
The CDC says MIS-C, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome, is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, like the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs.
But health officials are concerned some parents will be more worried about vaccine side effects, than the virus’s effects.
“If the acute symptoms of the vaccine are as severe as a lot of adults have experienced, that’s going to be a big turn-off for a lot of parents,” Wilde said.
Health officials say vaccinations in children are most likely to impact the next school year because it will take about six months to get full data back from these studies.
