It’s your turn, kids.
Today, Health Canada authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for kids 5 to 11 years of age. “After a thorough and independent scientific review of the evidence, the department has determined that the benefits of this vaccine for children between 5 and 11 years of age outweigh the risks,” Health Canada said in a release.
This is incredibly encouraging news for parents who have been waiting anxiously to give their kids protection from the virus.
The news is also welcomed by paediatricians like Anne Wormsbecker, who have seen their patients (and their parents) suffer over the last 20 months. “School-aged children have been tremendously impacted by the public health measures to control the pandemic, with school closures, loss of formal extra-curriculars and restrictions on face-to-face socialization. Through immunization, kids and their parents will be another step closer to their pre-pandemic lives,” she says. Jeff Kwong, a family physician in the Toronto Western Family Health Team as well as interim director of the Centre for Vaccine Preventable Diseases, adds that vaccinating kids is an important step toward ending the pandemic.
Kids under 12 now have the highest number of new cases across Canada, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
“By vaccinating them, it will decrease those cases and will decrease their transmission to other age groups, too,” says Kwong.
Although the vaccine has be...