Rewards outweigh risk associated with COVID-19 vaccines, even for younger kids: expert

As Health Canada considers whether to give the go-ahead for kids as young as five to be vaccinated against COVID-19, parents of those younger youth also face an important decision of their own.

Earlier this week, Pfizer announced it had officially asked Health Canada to give regulatory approval for smaller doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to be used on children aged five to 11. Experts say, if fast-tracked, regulatory approval for those child-sized doses could come as soon as early November.

“Even at the lower dose, even at a third of the dose, from what they're saying is that we get good immune response even with a much smaller dose,” said University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy professor, Dr. Kelly Grindrod.

But much the same as with the overall population, the success of these smaller doses geared toward younger kids depends on their uptake, and that largely depends on parents.

While one of the main concerns with respect to vaccine hesitancy in adults has become the risk for myocarditis — or more simply, heart inflammation, Grindrod says smaller doses may result in a reduced risk for that particular side-effect. 

“But we're probably not going to know that definitively for at least a few months after the vaccine is out and kids start getting it,” Grindrod said. “But the most important thing to note is COVID causes myocarditis and so what we need is for a vaccine to cause myocarditis less often than COVID does.”

So even though the vaccine can cause it in teens and young men, Grindrod says we know the virus itself also causes it and likely to a greater degree.

Meantime, Grindrod says parents also need to consider the gamut of other side-effects, many we're still learning of, which could come from kids contracting COVID.

“The thing that we're still trying to learn right now is when kids get the virus, even when they get mild cases or asymptomatic cases, are there any other long-term implications or long-term symptoms, so things like long-COVID,” she said. “With kids the question is what about these inflammatory syndromes, what about these long-COVID symptoms, what about cognitive problems after?”