Stanford offering COVID vaccines for young children

STANFORD, Calif. (KRON) — As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention clears way for COVID vaccinations for young children, Stanford Children’s Health will begin offering the shot this week.

Stanford Children’s Health patients can begin scheduling an appointment. There are 25 pediatric clinics across the Bay Area.

“It’s very clear that vaccines can protect both children and adults against severe disease, hospitalization and death,” said Stanford Children’s Health Pediatric Infectious Diseases Dr. Grace Lee.

Lee is relieved the last age group can finally get vaccinated.

“Children under the age of five have been directly impacted by COVID-19 infection and particularly during the omicron wave,” Lee said. “We’ve seen over two million cases documented, over twenty thousand hospitalizations and over two hundred deaths.”

Advisers with the CDC are recommending COVID-19 shots for children under five. The FDA authorized the first COVID Pfizer shot for infants and preschoolers.

The FDA also approved the Moderna vaccine for children aged six months to five years old.

“It is going to change the quality of life not just for the kids but for the families kids are going to be able to do a lot more things now,” UC Berkeley Infectious Disease Expert Dr. John Swartzberg. “Not only the kids, but the parents are going to feel a lot more comfortable about doing things.”

Swartzberg adds the vaccines will help with crowded settings.

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“If there’s an outbreak in schools or exposures, everything is going to change,” he said. “Daycare situations will be much better and so on.”

As for the side affects from the shot, doctors say 1 in 5 get a fever and body aches. Children can also expect soreness at the side of injection but overall nothing different than what we’ve seen with adults.