But white children and children of other racial and ethnic backgrounds are also getting MIS-C. Although it’s not clear which kids will develop MIS-C, Black and Latinx children have a higher risk compared with white children. “In previous surges, we have seen an increase in children who are otherwise healthy come to the hospital with MIS-C, and it can be devastating to families,” says Logan. Although deaths from COVID-19 are much less common in children than in adults, COVID-19 remains one of the top 10 causes of death among children.Ī key concern is multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, a rare and sometimes fatal condition that can develop after a child has been infected with the coronavirus. This was also true during earlier periods of the pandemic when other variants were dominant. COVID-19 can be serious in children.ĭuring the current omicron surge, some children have been getting very sick. There have not been any increases in preterm births or miscarriages in these vaccinated people.” 2. We have also been following pregnant women who have received the vaccine, and they are delivering healthy infants. “This false information has been perpetuated primarily by the anti-vaccine community, and it is completely unfounded. “There is absolutely no basis to this myth that the vaccine causes infertility,” Logan says. Logan also stresses that there is no evidence that the vaccine causes long-term effects like infertility, a common COVID-19 vaccine myth. “There is no way for mRNA to affect your DNA, and it does not go inside your cells where the DNA is located.” “The mRNA (the technology used in the vaccine) delivers the information, so your body can start making antibodies, and then it degrades,” she says. Logan also explains that long-term effects are unlikely based on how the vaccine works. “So, we know that vaccines work and they are safe.” “The vast majority of kids did not have any disruption of their normal life or have to miss school after their vaccines,” Logan says. Only 8% of kids had a fever after the first dose, and about 13% had a fever after the second dose. The most common side effects reported were pain at the injection site, which lasted a day or two, as well as fatigue and headache. Specifically, out of almost 9 million doses given to kids, approximately 98% of the side effects from the vaccine that were reported were mild and not serious.” “What they found is that, just like in the trials, the kids are doing extremely well, even better than the adults. “The CDC recently released real-world data on the vaccine’s safety in 5- to 11-year-olds as reported by their caregivers and clinicians in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and in v-safe (a reporting tool) by parents and caregivers,” Logan says. “If your child just had their two-dose primary series of the vaccine or the booster, they have high enough antibody levels to protect against severe disease caused by the omicron variant,” Logan says.ĭata also shows the vaccines are safe. Now that more than 22 million kids ages 5 to 17 have had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, real-world data confirms what the clinical trials showed: Vaccines are safe and effective and can help protect your child against the latest omicron variant. The vaccine is safe and effective for kids. Here, Logan shares five important facts to know about young people and the COVID-19 vaccine. (The CDC also now recommends that kids ages 5 to 11 who are moderately to severely immunocompromised receive a third primary dose of the vaccine 28 days after their second dose.) For kids ages 5 to 11, that means getting two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone ages 5 and older get vaccinated against COVID-19. “Some of these children are under the age of 5, and there’s no vaccine available for them.” “With the kids that we’re seeing in the hospital right now with omicron, almost all of them are unvaccinated,” Logan says. Getting your child or teen up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines (meaning fully vaccinated and boosted if they are eligible) can help protect them against severe disease caused by the omicron variant, says Rush pediatric infectious disease specialist Latania Logan, MD, MSPH. The highly contagious omicron variant is to blame for the rise in COVID-19 cases among children here in Chicago and the rest of the country. Since the start of the pandemic, about 8.5 million children in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19, and nearly 11% of those cases occurred just in the past two weeks, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
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