Vaccines for young children are coming, but many parents have tough questions

Vaccines appear to be safe for children and may protect against serious diseases. But data on efficacy is thin, and most children have already been infected.

It's a moment many parents have been looking forward to for months: children under 5 are now eligible for coronavirus vaccinations, among the last Americans to qualify.

Without access to vaccines, parents of young children are faced with almost impossible choices since the start of the pandemic. Many children have been kept away from schools, family gatherings and other activities, and deprived of normal childhood experiences. Now, that could all change.

On Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines for children as young as 6 months old . The decision means injections will be given to these young children for the first time, possibly as early as Tuesday.

Sunny Baker, 35, mother of two in Oxford , Miss., said she vaccinated her eldest daughter, Hattie Ruth, 5, at the earliest opportunity, and looked forward to her 2-year-old daughter, Alma Pearl, qualifying.

"Yes, yes, yes! We would like to be on the front line," she said.

But Ms. Baker could very well be in the minority: A recent Kaiser Health poll found that only one in five parents will get their young children vaccinated right away. Many plan to wait for now.

As the pandemic drags on for a third year and Americans weigh the risks they are willing to live with, the CDC's decision puts parents of young children on the spot .

Vaccines have lost some of their effectiveness against infection with new variants, although they continue to provide protection against serious disease and dead. And large numbers of Americans were infected during Omicron's push, helping to give many the mistaken impression that the battle was over.

The advice shifters also contributed to a lack of enthusiasm. Daryl Richardson, 37, of Baltimore, said he has no plans to have his three children vaccinated, in part because of constant changes in the number of recommended doses.

"First it was a hit, then it was a callback, and another callback," he said.

After having faced the perils of the pandemic with their children for so long, parents are now faced with new questions, some of which are so complex that they have puzzled even regulators and experts. extent and for how long will they work? And why bother, if the majority of young children have already been exposed to the virus?

For young children, states have so far ordered 2.5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 1.3 million doses of the Moderna vaccine.Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times

The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are considered safe for young children, and both produce blood levels of protective antibodies similar to those seen in young adults. But neither offers the miraculous protection offered by adult vaccines at the start of the pandemic.

Moderna's vaccine appears to produce a strong immune response in young people children, and its protection is complete within 42 days after the first dose. But the vaccine causes fevers in one in five children, and fewer providers are likely to offer it as an option compared to Pfizer's vaccine.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is more familiar and produces fewer fevers, but children will need to...