The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11 years old was approved yesterday 11/2/2021. We do not yet have this vaccine in stock, and we anticipate it may be 2 months before we do.
We endorse this vaccine as safe and effective, and another step toward returning to normalcy. We recommend that anyone eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine should get one as soon as it is available.
- More than 6 million children have been infected with this virus since the beginning of the pandemic, and children have suffered in numerous other ways. This includes disruptions to their education, harms to their mental and emotional health, and greatly diminished access to critical medical services.
- Vaccinating children will protect their health, and also allow them to fully engage in all of the activities that are so important to their health and development. It will also enable children to safely visit with friends and family during winter holiday celebrations.
- Children can get sick from COVID, and some get very sick.
- Vaccines have the power to stop epidemics. Children make up a significant part of our population, and vaccinating children must be part of our strategy to control this virus so it cannot continue to spread.
- People die from COVID-19, not from the vaccine.
The COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 through 11 is safe and effective.
- The evidence shows that the vaccine is safe and effective for this age group of children. Parents can be reassured that the vaccine for children ages 5-11 was subject to the very same multi-step testing and approval process as all other COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 vaccines─ including those routinely recommended for childhood vaccination.
- The vaccine’s safety was studied in approximately 3,100 children age 5 through 11 who received the vaccine. Children had only mild to moderate side effects that went away within two days. These side effects were more common after the second vaccine, and included redness and swelling, fatigue, headache, muscle and/or joint pain, chills, fever, swollen lymph nodes, nausea and decreased appetite.
- All of these symptoms are what we expect to see after a vaccine. They are a sign that the vaccine is working with your immune system so that your body will be ready if it’s ever exposed to the virus.
- This builds on the experience we have so far with this vaccine, which has been given to millions of adolescents and adults in the U.S.
- Experts agree that benefits of the vaccine for this age group greatly outweigh the risks. The vaccine can prevent your child from getting sick, and from transmitting the virus to others. While severe illness or death from COVID in children is relatively rare, thousands of children have been hospitalized and hundreds have died from the infection.
- Studies show that two doses of 10 micrograms of the vaccine administered 21 days apart reduce the risk of symptomatic disease by 91% with no side effects.
Where to get the vaccine: