Health

Why children under the age of 5 who already have COVID-19 still need vaccinations


SA few months ago, in the hustle and bustle of Christmas activities, I quickly picked my girls (and my own) noses for COVID-19. They are 3 years old and 1.5 years old. No one has symptoms, but we’re about to see their great-grandfather and want to be extra careful. As an epidemiologist, I know we are in the midst of a COVID-19 tsunami, children are great silent transmitters of COVID-19, and older people are at highest risk for severe breakthrough infections. Fifteen minutes later and to my great surprise, my girls’ tests showed they were positive. (My husband and I had a booster shot a month earlier and never tested positive.) Needless to say, our plans have changed. Instead of hanging out with our families, we spent Christmas at home with dirty noses, fevers, no appetite, and a very tired mother.

A version of this is broadcast to millions of families across the United States While we are just lucky to experience medium symptoms, others have not been so lucky. In this wave, children under 5 years of age are hospitalized with COVID-19 more than any other group of children. Eighty-six percent of these hospitalizations are Because COVID-19 (as opposed to with COVID-19). Hospitalizations of young children have surpassed previous flu peaks and far exceeded previous COVID-19 peaks. Toddler hospitalized for COVID-19, 1 in 4 went to the ICU. This wave has greatly increased the number of COVID-19 deaths among toddlers, and now more than 400 children under 4 years old have died from virus. The death rate from COVID-19 in this age group is higher than any other vaccine-preventable disease, and COVID-19 is one of the top 10. cause on child mortality in general.

Read more: A new test could help reveal if you’re immune to COVID-19

Of course, to date, this age group has not been eligible for a vaccine against COVID-19. But after rigorous clinical trials (as well as several failures like Pfizer-BioNTech worked to get the number of shots and dosage just right), FDA has approved emergency use, and CDC has recommended the use of COVID-19 vaccine for infants younger than 6 months. At this time 75% of children under 18 have been infected with the virus. My girls included. However, my daughters will be vaccinated as soon as possible.

There are many reasons why I get my kids vaccinated when they already have COVID-19.

Reinfection from Other respiratory viruses is common and should be expected with SARS-CoV-2. In reality, COVID19 re-improving happening more often. Very recently sciential evidence for certain children under the age of 18 failure to produce antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 after the infection has been confirmed (the immune system’s first line of defense) and has mediocre T-cell responses (the system’s second line of defense). immune system). This is not surprising. The quality of the immune response is related to the severity of the infection. If a child has a mild infection (many infections), they are less likely to have a lower dose of the virus and less extensive protection. This means we are not confident about what will happen when they are exposed to the virus again and I want my girls to be optimally protected.

Omicron is also changing very fast. SARS-CoV-2 is mutating four times faster than the flu. Recent Science evidence showed infection-neutralizing antibodies in winter (from variants BA.1 or BA.2) does not protect well against new circulating variants of Omicron (referred to as BA.4/5). In addition, neutralizing antibodies are rapidly waning. Oddly enough, six months into the infection, my girls’ first line of defense was largely gone (if they’d had enough antibodies in the first place). It is clear that we need second-generation vaccines for long-term protection against infections, such as nasal vaccinea vaccine right now, in the booster phase, will help prevent infection temporarily (and reduce the risk of Long COVID).

Read more: Routine vaccination rates for children misinformed about COVID-19 Shot Rose

We are also not very good at predicting what will happen in the future. Attach evidence showed that Omicron infection in unvaccinated individuals did not produce neutralizing antibodies against other variants of concern. While Omicron is the dominant variant right now, that could certainly change in the future. And if, for example, another variant comes with much more severity, relying on immunity to infection will be a pain. Unfortunately, we don’t know when the next variant of the concern will arrive. It could be tomorrow. It could be in 10 years. However, if it’s tomorrow, I want my girls protected.

Getting vaccinated plus recovering from a previous infection is called “hybrid immunity”, and more 20 studies of adults have shown that hybrid immunity is significantly increased in its ability to provide broad protection against infection and severe disease over a longer period. Vaccine immunity targets the mutated protein, and infection immunity targets the whole virus. This does not mean that we should purposefully exposing our children to COVID-19but we need to recognize the powerful protection this combination offers.

Read more: Here’s what to know about COVID-19 Booster Shots for kids

In the end, vaccines are safe. Side effects in both the Moderna and Pfizer clinical trials were minimal. Yes, most toddlers appear cranky and tired after vaccination, and 1 in 4 children who receive Moderna develop a fever (this is a typical feature of childhood vaccines). But these symptoms are short-lived and are a sign that the vaccine is working well. No cases of myocarditis were reported in either clinical trials. This is great but expect. Clinical trials are not large enough to capture such a rare event. Based on safety surveillance in children 5 to 11 years of age, myocarditis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination in young children is expected to be rare because of the smaller RNA dose and fundamentally different myocarditis. in young children. The data will be closely monitored. Either way, children can develop infective myocarditis, which is more serious than myocarditis after vaccination. We do not expect serious long-term side effects from these vaccines, based on our extensive knowledge of their ingredients. Scientists have been researching mRNA vaccine since the 1990s and extensive real-world data on both older children and adults, including pregnant womanshowed that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective.

It’s been more than seven months since CDC recommends COVID-19 vaccine for 5 to 11 year olds. Since then, our youngest children have been waiting their turn. To me, the benefits of these newly recommended vaccines clearly outweigh the risks. This week, I’ll be lining up to finally get my girls protection from this vaccine-preventable disease. I hope you will join me and protect your children.

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