Buzzfeed News
Just in time for the new school year, COVID vaccines are finally available for the nearly 20 million children under 5 in the US — the last portion of the population awaiting protection from the disease — after a four-month delay that put worried parents through hell, to say the least.
But even now, despite mostly gratitude and excitement, many caregivers can’t help but feel disappointed about how it all went down.
“I’m definitely excited and planning to get my kids vaccinated ASAP, [but] I’m still disheartened that it’s coming so late,” Kathleen Coda, mother to a 1- and a 3-year-old, said in an email. “It’s opening the world back up and feeling less resentful of everyone who decided to move on and stop taking precautions before our kids could be protected.”
The Pfizer vaccine for children 6 months to 4 years old was expected to be authorized in February, but the FDA abruptly changed its plans. The agency wanted to collect more data on the shots’ efficacy after clinical trials showed two doses didn’t offer enough protection in kids ages 2 to 4 (although it did in babies ages 6 months to 1 year.)
Two months later, in April, Moderna requested authorization for its vaccine for kids under 6 after a clinical trial found the shot to be safe and effective. But it wasn’t until June 15 that the FDA met to review the data for both shots.
Both the FDA and CDC agreed it made the most sense to wait until Pfizer released its data on a third dose, which it did at the end of May, and conduct a joint review, deciding to expand eligibility to kids under 5 for both shots at the same time. On June 18, the CDC endorsed the FDA’s decision, which came nearly eight months after the first vaccine was authorized for children between 5 and 11.
It was during this limbo period that what Coda had feared most came true. Her 1-year-old son, who at 6 weeks old had open-heart surgery to repair a defect, contracted COVID alongside his parents.
“All in all I just felt failed by the general public and the government agencies who recommended ending the mask mandates and other precautions before the vaccines were available for our kids,” Coda said. “And to have [my kids] get it right before [the vaccines] became available was just a kick in the pants.”
For many caregivers in the US, which is the first country in the world to offer COVID vaccines for kids as young as 6 months, the green light to vaccinate their babies and toddlers means they will no longer…
