Hospitals, clinics and pharmacies in the United States began vaccinating the country’s youngest children against COVID-19 on Tuesday, a milestone welcomed by parents who want to protect their children from the worst effects of the virus.
Millions of vaccines were being distributed nationwide, 18 months after the elderly became the first group to be vaccinated. Children aged six months to four years are not at as high a risk as adults. But the huge level of infections has seen more than 45,000 hospitalizations and nearly 500 deaths in the 0-4 group in America since the outbreak of the pandemic – results that the vaccine could have prevented in many cases. “We are very excited,” said Amisha Vakil, a mother of two three-year-old boys who wore matching Spiderman T-shirts as they filmed Moderna at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. One of the twins underwent three open heart surgeries in his first five months. “It’s extremely high risk, so you know, we lived in a small bubble,” Vakil said. “Now he has some armor that helps a lot.” The moment was also greeted by President Joe Biden, whose administration distributed 10 million vaccines of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to the states after their approval last week. “The United States is now the first country in the world to offer safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines for children up to six months of age,” Biden said, calling it a “monumental step forward.” A handful of other countries and territories, such as Argentina, Bahrain, Chile, China, Cuba, Hong Kong and Venezuela, have previously offered COVID vaccines to infants, but these did not include mRNA vaccines, which are considered the top technology for this purpose. The European Medicines Agency is reviewing the Moderna vaccine for use in children under the age of six and could follow the US decision. Born in the pandemic Many of the children born on Tuesday were born after the onset of the pandemic and knew only a life of limitations. Anna Farrow, who came to the same hospital with her husband Luke, said she saw a new beginning for their three-year-old son George and 10-month-old Hope. “This is kind of the beginning of a normal childhood. And we’re very excited about that,” he said. Across the country in Needham, Massachusetts, Ellen Dietrick, a Beth Shalom Temple administrator, was preparing to welcome 300 children on the first day. Daniel Grieneisen, the father of a three-year-old girl who received the vaccine, said: “It means we are now just a few weeks away from being able to go indoors and somehow get back to life. it’s pretty exciting. “ Last week, a team of experts called by the Food and Drug Administration looked at data from clinical trials involving thousands of children conducted by Pfizer and Moderna, and found that both vaccines were safe and effective. However, a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation in May found that only one in five parents of children under the age of five were willing to be vaccinated immediately. A slightly higher percentage, 38 percent, said they would wait and see how well the vaccine worked in others. New Yorker Rita Said, 29, said she was worried about side effects and planned to wait a few years before deciding whether to vaccinate her two-year-old son. “Everyone on their own, I think it should be optional, not mandatory,” she said, pushing her son into a stroller through Central Park. Hal Moore, a 32-year-old New York-based teacher, said he was “definitely relieved” he could vaccinate Lucy’s 10-month-old daughter, but “we’ll probably wait until the next regular appointment to get it.” In a sign of continuing politicization over vaccines in America, Florida Gov. and potential Republican presidential candidate Ron De Sandis has refused to order federal government vaccines for younger children, leaving parents to private clinics. take care of themselves. “These are people who have zero risk of getting anything,” he told a news conference last week.
Pfizer, Moderna COVID vaccines work for children under 5, says the FDA © 2022 AFP
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