Doctors are having conversations with families about vaccinating children against COVID-19 and they're sometimes finding differing opinions in some households.
“I think the best way to approach this is to really discuss the protection of individuals in the household. This includes younger children or if there's a grandparent in the household that may or may not have been vaccinated, you also need to protect them,” said Dr. Tina Tan, a fellow at the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Tan wants people to remember that the vaccine for children is the same one adults get. She says parents are usually hesitant because of how fast the vaccine was developed.
“We were able to actually sequence the gene of the organism arm very rapidly almost as soon as the organism was discovered and then from that, we were able to identify vaccine targets rapidly and because of advances and development of vaccines, we could develop this vaccine quite rapidly,” said Dr. Tan.
Some 4 million children have been infected with COVID-19. That's resulted in more than 16,000 hospitalizations and a little more than 300 deaths.
Dr. Tan says children should also be part of the decision-making process.
“We know that if kids that age get vaccinated, they're going to be able to participate in summer vacations and summer camps. They're going to have more freedom to basically socialize with other individuals,” said Dr. Tan.