Now that COVID vaccinations have been approved for younger age groups, a common question is where children can get vaccinated and what the safety concerns of the vaccines are. I’m personally wondering about whether schools are requiring COVID vaccination for students today.

Jeffrey Zients, the COVID-19 Response Coordinator for the White House, says that over 20,000 medical care providers (including pediatricians, family doctors, and pharmacies) are equipped to vaccinate young children against COVID-19. Depending on the facility, some may require an appointment and some may be open to walk-in vaccinations. Unfortunately, vaccines are not approved for children under the age of 5 to date — the official age group being 6 months to 4 years — and approval is expected sometime in mid-2022. Trials for those vaccines are currently underway.

In children ages 5-12, the dosage for the Pfizer vaccine is 1/3 the dosage approved for 12-17 year olds and adults. The adult dosage is 30 micrograms, administered twice, three weeks apart. Booster shots are also currently available, and Dr. Fauci has predicted that in the future COVID-19 vaccinations will be a three-shot regimen.

Shots administered to children ages 5-12 are stored in smaller vials and needles to avoid mix-ups. The reduced dosage given to children has been found to produce a similar immune response to the 16-25 year age group, even though the dosage is different.

Another question is whether schools can require a child to get vaccinated, and the answer to this is dependent on whether the child attends and private or public school. Private schools, day cares, and camps have the ability to decide whether students are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19. For public schools K-12, the vaccination requirement is decided by the state.

For more information on side effects of a child getting vaccinated, possible future health concerns including myocarditis, the clinical trials for children, and the history of the creation of COVID vaccines, please click here.

Now, let’s learn about the impact this has had on schools. In an article by NPR, “Should Schools Require the COVID Vaccine?” California became the first state in America to announce that they would add the COVID vaccine to the list of vaccines required for all schoolchildren. Fourteen other states are making similar decisions.

There is a history of vaccine mandates in schools traces back 200 years, for smallpox. Boston was the first city, in 1827, to required smallpox vaccinations and with the mandate, infections decreased dramatically. Yet, with that, came the anti-vaccination movement where the Anti-Vaccination League of America had its first meeting in 1882. In contrast, when the polio vaccine was approved in 1955, many people jumped to get vaccinated before states even began to consider mandating vaccination due to high demand. To date, all 50 states require vaccination for polio, MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella), Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis), and varicella (also known as chickenpox). It’s much harder to add new vaccinations to this list, however, due to social controversy. Aside from the COVID vaccine, the HPV vaccine has been controversial because of its connection to sexual activity. Dr. Thomas Dobbs, Mississippi’s State Health Officer, recommends against state-wide COVID vaccine mandates, as he notes that in this time of uncertainty, the person patients will trust most is their primary healthcare provider — so the best place to answer questions about vaccination is with that individual, rather than having a person be forced into vaccination by a state mandate.

Thanks for reading!