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is the covid vaccine safe for children? expert answers questions
postmedia spoke to dr. joan robinson, a pediatric infectious disease expert at edmonton’s stollery children’s hospital
may 16 2021
3 minute read
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by: anna junker
on monday, alberta opened up its covid-19 vaccine eligibility to anyone aged 12 or older. with kids now eligible, some parents may have questions about whether to vaccinate their children. currently, only the pfizer-biontech vaccine has been approved in canada for those between the ages of 12 and 18, while studies are ongoing for younger ages.
postmedia spoke to dr. joan robinson, a pediatric infectious disease expert at edmonton’s stollery children’s hospital about vaccine hesitancy and what parents should know about the covid-19 vaccine.
this interview has been edited for length and clarity.
how does the vaccine work in children?
pfizer has been given to 2,300 children in a study that has not yet been published, but it appears to be safe in children. we don’t know for sure that it prevents disease in children the same way that it does in adults, but it would be completely extraordinary if a vaccine was better in adults than in children, because children have far superior immune systems. so i think it’s incredibly likely that the vaccine will prevent almost all severe covid and even almost all mild covid in children. we just aren’t sure if it will prevent asymptomatic covid.
how safe is the vaccine?
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from the adult pfizer vaccine trials, the only serious adverse event was anaphylaxis, which can occur from any injectable product. anywhere in canada where one is given the vaccine, there will be someone there prepared to give epinephrine right away if the person develops anaphylaxis. now that the vaccine has been given to millions and millions of people worldwide, i think if there was any serious adverse event that occurred in, let’s say, one in 100,000 people, we would know about that for sure by now. so i think the chance is really high the vaccine that we’re giving to children will be safe. the only expected serious side effects would be anaphylaxis, which is incredibly treatable. now, many children will get a sore arm, but i think we all would agree that’s a pretty minor adverse event.
what are the benefits versus the risk?
if a child is not vaccinated, i think the chance is very high they will get covid over the next few years because covid is not about to go away. i think the pandemic will die down, and we’ll see fewer cases, but it will still be out there.
the vast majority of children who get covid just get a cold and it’s not anything very serious. but there are a small percentage of children that do end up in hospital when they get covid. at the stollery, so far, we’ve had about 30 admissions of children with covid. some of them did end up in the intensive care unit. they all went home and none had long-term adverse events, but it can be fairly serious.
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another problem is children can get something called multi-system inflammatory disease. it can happen typically two to six weeks after they had covid. they get a fever for at least three days and they commonly have a rash, and oftentimes vomiting and diarrhea, and they can actually develop shock and end up in the intensive care unit. at the stollery we’ve had at least 17 children admitted with this and 70 per cent of them ended up in intensive care units. they’re all at home now, but i think this can be very worrisome for parents and very traumatic for children.
what about concerns over future adverse events from vaccines?
if the vaccine would truly cause any long-term problems, i think that’s not very likely. but no one can absolutely promise a parent that. what we do know is if your child gets covid, they can end up with severe problems in the short run. we know that about one in 10 adults get what’s now been called long covid, ongoing symptoms after they’ve had covid. the same phenomenon has been described in children. so i think even if your child has mild covid, there is a chance that months down the road, it will still not be back to normal. weighing benefit versus risk from a scientific point of view, the benefit outweighs the risk. i think it’s highly unlikely that a year from now, people will regret the fact that they gave their child a covid vaccine.
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