As a pediatrician, I can't wait to vaccinate my under 5 patients against COVID-19

News that parents have been eagerly waiting for is finally here: They may be able to have kids under 5 vaccinated for COVID-19 as early as June 21.

As a pediatrician, I'm thrilled because nothing matters more to me than keeping children healthy.

When my patients come in for checkups, we talk about all the ways they can keep themselves well. We talk about healthy eating, regular physical activity and good sleep habits. We talk about helmets, car seats and fire extinguishers. And, of course, we talk about all the diseases they’ll be protected against when I give them their vaccines.

Helping kids avoid illness and injury is why I became a pediatrician in the first place.

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Which is why I greeted the news that Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, as well as Moderna, are seeking emergency use authorization for a lower dose of its COVID-19 vaccine for patients ages 6 months through 4 years of age (Pfizer) and 6 months through 5 years (Moderna) with such elation. I have been waiting for this for a long time.

Vaccinations for children are routine

Compared with adults, children overall are at lower risk of severe disease, hospitalization or death from COVID-19. However, lower risk isn’t the same as zero risk, and there is a long history of vaccinating kids against diseases that are usually mild but have the potential to cause devastating illness.

The MMR vaccine is a good example. It has been part of the routine vaccine schedule for children for decades. Measles, mumps and rubella, the three viruses it protects against, all cause relatively mild (though unpleasant) illness in most children infected with them.

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But all can cause problems that are far worse. Measles still kills more than 200,000 people a year, mostly children, and can cause permanent brain damage, even weeks or months after being infected. Mumps can permanently damage male fertility or testosterone production. Rubella (also known as German measles) causes mild symptoms in most people who catch it, but can kill or severely harm a developing fetus if a woman gets it while pregnant.

I’ve been a doctor for over two decades and, thanks to the MMR vaccine, I have yet to encounter any one of these outcomes.

I greet a COVID-19 vaccine for my younger patients from the same perspective. While the effectiveness of Moderna’s vaccine for these children against infection is lower than I might have hoped (51% in children 6 months to 2 years, 37% for those 2 to under 6 years), it appears highly effective against severe disease and death.

Pfizer's is better, at 80.3%. But getting either vaccine is much better than not getting vaccinated at all.

Pandemic deaths and damage among kids

COVID-19 has killed more than 1,500 children and can cause severe inflammation of a child’s organs, the heart especially. I want protection from that for all of my patients.

Since the advent of the COVID vaccines, I have had innumerable conversations about them with my patients’ parents, both for themselves and for their children. Those conversations tend to go one of three ways:

►Many parents ask me every time they come in when I think a vaccine will be available for their child. They’ll join the hundreds of parents who lined their kids up outside our doors the first day to get Pfizer’s vaccine after it was approved for children 5 years and older. All those parents need is a date and time, no convincing required.

►By contrast, there are those under the hard no. Parents who haven’t been vaccinated themselves, haven’t gotten their older kids vaccinated and won’t want it for their younger ones, either. I’ve come to recognize those interactions quickly, and I don’t try to prolong them. I let the parents know that I recommend it, that I’m always glad to answer any questions they care to ask, and move on.

►Then there will be the hesitant ones. I have talked with so many parents who have been vaccinated themselves but have had reservations about doing so for their kids. Often this is related to misinformation they’ve heard somewhere. Sometimes they simply don’t perceive much need. But in these cases, they’re open to hearing my perspective as someone whose job is to keep their kids healthy.

I will carry the same advice I’ve given parents of older children into conversations with younger ones. Like everyone else, I want a return to life as we knew it before the pandemic, and I want all of my patients to be as safe as they can be as restrictions on gatherings and mask requirements get looser or go away altogether. No matter how low any given patient’s risk might be, I want it as low as possible.

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I want every one of my patients to have as low a risk of ending up in the hospital or intensive care as I can get it. As family gatherings resume, trips are scheduled again and older siblings return to activities that have been on hold, I want to ensure that those younger kids have been given as much protection as we have.

Every time a parent says that talking with me is why they got vaccinated, it makes me feel like I’ve done my job to chip away at the pandemic that has thrown our lives into chaos for the past two years. Every time the trust I have developed with a family helps a parent feel that having me vaccinate their child is the right thing to do, it makes me glad I was there to have that conversation, to listen to their concerns with respect and give them the facts they needed.

Every one of those experiences will help me as I start having those conversations with parents of my younger patients, too.

I cannot wait.

Daniel Summers is a pediatrician in private practice in the Boston area.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pediatrician says kids under 5 should get COVID vaccine. Here's why.