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November 24, 2021 – As vaccinations among children aged 5-11 are gaining momentum, a significant number of parents say they do not want their children to be vaccinated.
In a survey of WebMD readers, 49% of respondents who have children in this age group say they do not want their sons and daughters to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
On November 2, CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, approved a recommendation from the agency’s advisory panel that children aged 5-11 should be vaccinated with the Pfizer pediatric vaccine. This decision extended vaccine recommendations to about 28 million children in the United States.
Vaccinations among eligible 5- to 11-year-olds are steadily increasing after a slightly slow start. Initially, the rate was behind that of 12- to 15-year-olds in the first week of eligibility, but it has since closed the gap, based on data from the CDC’s COVID Data Tracker.
In total, just over 3 million children aged 5-11 years have received at least one dose, which is 10.7% of the total population in this age group.
The CDC says that the Pfizer vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 infection in children aged 5 to 15 years, and that the immune response in children aged 5-15 years was equal to that in humans. age from 16 to 25 years.
Among people overall, 56% in the WebMD survey said they were confident, or somewhat confident, that the vaccine was safe for this age group.
Rare cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have been reported in adolescents and young adults. According to the CDC, “[I]In one study, the risk of myocarditis after the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech in the week after vaccination was about 54 cases per million doses given to men aged 12-17 years. “
The known and potential benefits of vaccination against COVID-19 outweigh the risks, including the possible risk of myocarditis or pericarditis, the CDC said.
Concerns also among doctors, nurses
An accompanying study of doctors and nurses at Medscape, WebMD’s nursing site for health professionals, also found significant fluctuations in pediatric vaccines.
Among doctors who have children in this age group, 30% of respondents said they would not like their children to be vaccinated; 9% are not sure. For nurses and registered advanced practice nurses (APRNs), 45% said they did not want their children to receive the COVID-19 vaccine; 13% are not sure. Among pharmacists, 31% said they would not be vaccinated and 9% were unsure.
How safe is the vaccine?
Clinicians were asked how confident they were that the vaccine was safe for this age group, and 66% of doctors, 52% of nurses / APRNs and 66% of pharmacists said they were somewhat or very confident.
In different types of clinicians, women are ahead of their male counterparts in terms of confidence in the safety of the vaccine: 71% vs. 65% among physicians, 55% vs. 45% among nurses / APRNs, and 68% vs. 60% among pharmacists.
Both among doctors and among nurses, younger doctors (under 45) tend to have more confidence in the safety of the vaccine: 72% vs. 64% (doctors), 54% vs. 51% (nurses / APRN) and 71% vs. 59% (pharmacists).
The difference in trust was clear between vaccinated and unvaccinated doctors. All unvaccinated doctors who responded to the survey said they did not trust the vaccine for children. Among the unvaccinated
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