FACT FINDERS: Are there concerns about COVID vaccine safety in young children?

TUCSON, Ariz. (KOLD News 13) - The COVID vaccine for our youngest children was supposed to be considered by the FDA on Feb. 16, but that got postponed. Now, many parents are wondering is there a safety concern?

There is a lot of confusion surrounding Pfizer’s proposed COVID vaccine for children ages six months to 5-years-old. At first, we were told the two-dose course looked good for children younger than two. But it was not providing enough protection for two to 5-year-olds so they wanted to test a third shot.

Then, we were told they would go ahead now to seek FDA Emergency Use Authorization on the two shots and, by the time kids had those doses on board, we would hopefully have the data supporting a third shot.

The FDA was supposed to consider that Feb. 16, but then said they will wait for data on the full three course vaccine schedule before making a decision. That has some parents questioning its safety.

Dr. Saman Nematollahi, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, says parents can rest easy as there were no safety concerns with the first two doses.

”We really want to make sure that the science is done property and really want to make sure that we continue to have enough trust in the community. And so, in order to continue to build that trust, we want to make sure we do everything, or at least the scientists that are studying this, want to make sure they do everything correctly and so they feel that the best way at this time is to re-evaluate, do the three doses and to go from there,” he said.

Data on the three shots for this age group is expected some time in April.

Many parents have one other big question, since two shots is enough protection for those six months to 2-years-old, why don’t we offer that age group the shots while we continue to test two to 5-year-olds? Dr. Nematollahi said he believes they are trying to roll out that age group all at the same time as that is how they did the study.

To learn more about the FDA postponement, click here.

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