COVID vaccines are on the horizon for children under 5, but will parents be eager to get them?

After some setbacks, a COVID-19 vaccine is on the horizon for infants and preschoolers, the last group ineligible for immunizations, but will parents of young children seek the shots?

Nationally, survey responses indicate few are eager to do so, but uptake might be better among children 6 months to 4 years than it has been in kids 5 to 11, said Dr. Rosemary Olivero, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and division chief of medical specialties at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, part of the newly merged Beaumont and Spectrum health systems, BHSH Health.

Young children, scheduled for check-ups more than once a year, are more likely to see their pediatricians. “So there will be more opportunities to have those discussions, face-to-face, which are incredibly impactful,” she said.

Further, there is a nervousness about the possibility of illness in the youngest patients, smaller and often unable to communicate their ailments, Olivero said.

“And having that message that the vaccine is so incredibly effective at preventing severe disease is a huge sigh of relief for many parents who really are willing to get into the data,” she said Wednesday during a phone call with reporters.

One day earlier, Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech submitted a request to the US Food and Drug Administration to extend the emergency use of the vaccine to children 6 months to 4 years old, the last group ineligible for vaccines.

It is a development Olivero and others were excited to hear.

“I think when we factor in the direct consequences of COVID-19 and all the indirect consequences, with the loss of school and attendance in group childcare settings, I think this is absolutely huge,” she said.

Pfizer is giving federal regulators information on the first two of what is expected to be a three-shot immunization series. Dosage is 1/3 of the adult dosage.

There are several hurdles, however, the companies must clear before shots are administered. An FDA advisory panel will meet Feb. 15 to discuss the vaccine for this age group, the FDA announced Tuesday.

The vaccine will be administered only after the FDA authorizes it and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, following a meeting of its advisory committee, recommend it. For the vaccine for children 5 to 11, this took about a month.

FDA officials asked Pfizer to submit the data considering the recent omicron surge, which brought hospitalizations among children to record levels in Michigan and elsewhere.

“Having a safe and effective vaccine available for children in this age group is a priority for the agency and we’re committed to a timely review of the data,” Dr. Janet Woodcock, acting FDA commissioner, said in a statement.

In December, Pfizer announced that while 6- to 24-month-old children in a clinical study, now involving about 8,300 children, met the study’s endpoints for immune response to the vaccine, as compared to high efficacy in people 16 to 25, those 2 to 4 did not.

Olivero noted what is measurable in a laboratory differs from the real-world impact of vaccination; it doesn’t provide a full picture. “We know that folks that actually don’t generate the antibody response with the cut off in the lab, they actually still do have quite a bit of immune response and protection against severe COVID. ”

Researchers then began to assess the need for a third dose. Pfizer announced it would submit additional information on the third shot, given at least eight weeks after the second, in the coming months.

Even though a third dose of the vaccine might be needed eventually, it is still an important step to get children access to the two-dose vaccine so they can have at least some protection, Olivero said.

“Omicron is still a pretty large threat in the United States, and children really are bearing the brunt of COVID-19 infections, and even, in many areas, hospitalizations,” she said.

Contrary to what some see, COVID can indeed be a very serious health condition for some children and adolescents, Olivero said.

Children from infants to young school age, some of them healthy and some with other medical issues, have been hospitalized, she said.

In Michigan, there have been about 129,000 cases reported in children 0 to 9. The state reports 12 have died.

With omicron, the total number of Michigan children hospitalized at any given time with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 increased from about 60, about 1% of total hospitalizations, during the worst of the delta surge, to about 140, about 3% The number has since fallen below 100. In comparison, at the worst last month, about 5,000 adults were hospitalized with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 in Michigan.

In January, the CDC noted an especially high rise in hospitalizations of children 0 to 4. This includes both children going to the hospital with COVID and those who arrive for an alternate reason and later test positive.

The Kaiser Family Foundation, in a poll of about 1,500 adults across the country, found 31% of parents would immediately vaccinate their young children and 26% would “definitely not.”

Children 5 to 11 have been eligible since early NovemberAbout 43% of children 12 to 15 have received both primary shots. The percentages are much higher in the oldest age groups, more vulnerable to severe disease.

Survey responses were similar when people were questioned about the vaccine for children 5 to 11, Olivero said.

She said this speaks to general misconceptions about the impact of COVID-19 on kids. “But then also the misconception that the pandemic is going to be ending. So why would I get a vaccine to prevent something that is not going to be an issue. moving forward? ”Olivero said.

She said the virus is not going away.

With enough herd immunity achieved through vaccination and natural infection, however, all will settle into a more predictable pattern with the virus that is less disruptive and less likely to bring about huge peaks that overwhelm the health care system, she said.

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