Should an 11-year-old wait to get a large dose of the COVID-19 vaccine?

Children between the ages of 5 and 11 began receiving the Covid-19 shot last week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE vaccines for that age group. White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Gents said some 900,000 children in that age group had received the first dose as of Wednesday.

The vaccine will be given in two shots, spaced three weeks apart, with adults. But the amount per dose varies greatly for young children and people 12 years of age and older. People ages 5 to 11 will get 10 micrograms of the vaccine per dose, while people 12 and older will get 30 micrograms—three times as much.

Ms. Adams-Kaplan, a kindergarten teacher in Philadelphia, said she thought of waiting for her daughter to take the larger 30-microgram dose when she turned 12 on November 26, thinking it would give her a covid- Can save better than 19.

She said, “She’s not 11-years-old.” “I wasn’t sure what to do.”

Pediatricians across the country said they have received similar inquiries from parents. If their child is approaching the age of 12, should they wait to take a larger dose? The answer to most pediatric and infectious disease experts is no.

“Don’t wait until you’re 12,” said Paul Offit, an infectious disease specialist and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who also sits on the Food and Drug Administration’s advisory panel on vaccines. Huh.

Doctor. Offit said a lower dose does not necessarily make the vaccine less effective. He said the goal of any vaccine is to induce a protective immune response with the lowest possible dose. Lower doses tend to reduce side effects, he said.

The 12-year age cutoff for larger doses reflects the way Pfizer has designed trials for the vaccine. Dr. Offit said children 12-years-old should get the larger dose because Pfizer’s studies demonstrate the safety and efficacy of larger doses at that age, he said.

Ten-, 20- and 30-microgram doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were tested in young children, said Stanley Perlman, a pediatric infectious disease specialist who is also a member of the FDA advising panel on COVID-19 vaccines. Huh. “The immune responses were similar,” he said.

Pfizer said the COVID-19 vaccine was safe and elicited strong neutralizing antibody responses in a mid-to-late trial of children aged 5 to 11 years. Pfizer said that the participants who received the 10-microgram dose had antibody responses comparable to a previous Pfizer-BioNTech study of people ages 16 to 25 who received the larger 30-microgram dose.

Pediatric and infectious disease experts said the dosage for vaccines is different than for antibiotics because they work in different ways. With antibiotics, a person’s weight matters because the patient needs to maintain a certain level of the drug in their bloodstream, Dr. Offit said. Not so with vaccines, which work by stimulating the immune system.

FDA authorization allows children who turn 12 between their first and second doses to receive either a smaller dose for 11-year-olds or a larger dose for children 12 and older. The CDC says that children should receive the dose of the vaccine based on their age on the day of vaccination for that particular dose. For example, if a child turns 12 between doses, they should receive a larger 30-microgram formulation for their second dose, the CDC said.

Chicago’s Ann & Robert H. Tina Tan, a pediatrician at Lurie Children’s Hospital, said people shouldn’t wait until age 12 to get their children vaccinated over the large dosage range.

“The coronavirus is still circulating in the community, there are still a lot of people who are unvaccinated, and Delta is highly transmitted,” she said.

Ms Adams-Kaplan said she spoke to her children’s pediatrician, who echoed that advice. He decided not to wait.

“I’ll get the vaccine for him as soon as I can get it,” she said. “We’ve been waiting for so long.”