The 'right dose at the right time' key for kids under 5

Read Story Transcript

With children soon to be eligible for a vaccine against COVID-19, parents are wondering what they should consider before their children get their shots. And Dr. Lisa Barrett says that while the vaccine is safe,parents would be wise to give thought to the timing around when their children are vaccinated.

And that discussion around timing can apply to adult boosters as well.

Health Canada has approvedthe Moderna vaccine forchildren between the ages of six months and five years old.It's the first vaccine to be approved for children under five in Canada, and provinces will decide when the vaccine will be available for children.

Barrett is an infectious diseases expert and researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax. She spoke with The Current guest host Catherine Cullen.Here is part of that conversation.

Well, let's start with the vaccine for young kids. How is it different from the Moderna dose given to adult?

So very typically with smaller people, we give them smaller doses of either medications or vaccines, and Moderna is no different. The dose is about a quarter of what we give to those who are greater than 18 years old. So not uncommon.

It's been shown in the KidCOVE study that it is as effective as the bigger doses for the over 18 crew. So safe, and a smaller dose compared with the adults.

What is the takeaway for parents of a healthy child between the ages of five years and six months? Is the takeawaygo out and get this vaccine?

This is a great option for parents to protect their kids. The right dose and the right time is going to be up tohow healthy the kids are, what environments they live in, and what their risk is at the moment, as well as what's going to be coming down the line.

It's a huge question right now, the exact timing of vaccines. If you can still take the risk of your child getting symptomatic disease and reduce that, and it's something you worry about a lot, or your child has underlying medical problems, then that's something you're going to want to do sooner than later.

Some other folks may be thinking that the right dose and right time for their child may be closer to the fall. And that really is something that's going to have to be discussed with health providers.

There's a lot of discussion, not just with kids, but with adults around the "wait" word we've avoided. We've told people get doses as soon as you can, as soon as you can. And that's been true for a lot of the pandemic. And now we're into a right- dose-at-the-right-time situation.

And I think we have to be transparent about that and recognise that there's more subtlety right now. So what's the long and the short answer of this? It's that there's not one answer for everyone all at once.

For young kids, this is a safe vaccine. And then there's got to be a little bit of discussion of what the risk is for each individual kid and where we are in the pandemic in terms of timing and how quickly to run out and get it.

But, to be clear, I would not say that there is a danger to this vaccine, and that's why we should avoid giving it to small children. It's just at the timing for everyone right now, it's a little bit up in the air for next doses.

When you talk about trying to choose the right moment, is that about the fact that we're in this seventh wave in some provinces, we see the number of cases rising, or is it about the prospect of another vaccine coming along that deals more specifically with the variations of Omicron that we're seeing right now?

I don't think we can [chalk]this up into just children versus adults. This is where we are in the pandemic. And that's why our conversation keeps shifting and drifting, because we're all breathing the same air.

So what is the sweet spot? Well, the things to consider are how likely you are [to get a serious case of COVID]with the doses you have, whether that's zero in some young kids or three doses already[with]some older folks who might be 45 or 50 years old. You still have good protection against severe disease and death, even if you're a ways out from your last dose.

Right now,if you've just had COVID, or you've just had a dose within the last six months, we know that your body needs some time in between to rest in order to have the best and highest response to the next dose you get.

And that's why some folks are saying, and [the National Advisory Committee on Immunization] is suggesting, that waiting six months in between is a reasonable thing to do unless you're very immunocompromised or at high risk for other reasons of getting sick.

That matters, not just because there may be what people are calling a better matched vaccine later in the fall. It matters because you want to be able to do the right thing for your immune response at a given time.

If your purpose of getting a booster is so that you just don't have to think about that cause you're never going to get infected, that's not the goal here. Your goal is to get the most bang for your buck from your next dose of vaccine to protect against really bad disease.

Written by Philip Drost. Produced by SamiraMohyeddin. Q&A edited for length and clarity.