Children ages 12 to 15 became eligible for the Pfizer shot May 12th. Frisco pediatrician Dr. Seth Kaplan is also president of the Texas Pediatric Society and strongly recommends 12 to 15 year old gets vaccinated. He says he has conversations daily with parents over vaccinating their children. "Fortunately there's been a little more urgency to those conversations recently, and that has led more people to realize that now is the time to not let all the chatter they hear on social media and the disinformation out there to lead them down the wrong path. So more and more are opting to get vaccinated. We will continue to have those conversations to those who are not yet convinced."
He says they have seen more children with Covid-19 in the past couple of weeks than during the entire pandemic. "The numbers are just exploding."
The good news, Kaplan says, is most kids are going to have a relatively mild disease course. He says the percentage of children who end up in the hospital is very small, and the percentage who die "remains exceedingly small. The problem is the as sheer numbers of children who are infected goes up so quickly, you're going to have many more kids end up in the hospital and die because there are so many more kids getting Covid."
The Pfizer vaccine won full FDA approval Monday. It's still under Emergency Use Authorization for the 12-15 age group. "They have already demonstrated through the EUA process that the vaccine is safe and effective. We expect full approval within a few months."
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