Seattle doctor is ‘keen’ for her youngsters to be eligible for COVID-19 vaccine

Dr. Avantika Waring has three sons standing by for COVID vaccine approval.

SEATTLE – Dr. Avantika Waring, a Seattle-based medical doctor, has three sons standing by for the COVID vaccine to be approved.

She said her eldest son, who is 11 years old and 12 years old, is as eager as he is to be vaccinated.

“He’s a little concerned, I think about the process, but he also realizes that he’s very social so he can do a lot of things he wants to do,” Waring said.

A federal vaccine advisory board is due to meet on Wednesday to discuss whether to recommend Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for 12-15 year olds.

The US Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve the vaccine for young adults 12 and older early next week.

The FDA action would then be followed by the advisory committee meeting currently scheduled for Wednesday May 12th. A draft agenda posted online said that a vote would take place on Wednesday afternoon.

Waring noted how resilient children were through the pandemic, and opening up vaccinations to teenagers would be an additional step towards normalization.

“They really made the most of all the changes that were in store for them, but I still think there are significant benefits for them in having a little more of that personal interaction,” Waring said.

In late March, Pfizer released preliminary results from a vaccine study of 2,260 US volunteers, ages 12-15, which found the shot was protecting the younger group.

The children taking part in the study had similar side effects as young adults, Pfizer said. The main side effects are pain, fever, chills, and fatigue, especially after the second dose.

Pfizer and BioNTech recently announced that they have begun the process to seek full approval from the FDA for their mRNA coronavirus vaccine for adults ages 16 and older.

The FDA only granted emergency use approval for the two-dose vaccine, intended for use in people aged 16 and over, in December 2020. More than 170 million doses of the vaccine have been dispensed in the United States since the emergency clearance was granted