COVID-19 VACCINATIONS FOR CHILDREN
Help Protect Your Child and Your Family
Getting a COVID-19 vaccination can help protect your child from getting COVID-19. Early information shows that the vaccines may help keep people from spreading COVID-19 to others. They can also help keep your child from getting seriously sick even if they do get COVID-19. Help protect your whole family by getting yourself and your children 5 years and older vaccinated against COVID-19.
Vaccine Fact Sheets for Download
Information about COVID-19 Vaccines for Children and Teens
Get a COVID-19 vaccine for your child as soon as you can.
- COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective.
- COVID-19 vaccines have been used under the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history, which includes studies in adolescents.
- Your child will need a second shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine 3 weeks after their first shot.
- Children 5-11 years of age receive a 1/3rd dosage of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as adults.
- Children and adolescents receive the same dosage of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as adults. There are no patient weight requirements for COVID-19 vaccination, and COVID-19 vaccine dosage does not vary by patient weight.
- Your child can’t get COVID-19 from any COVID-19 vaccine, including the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
- Your child may get a COVID-19 vaccine and other vaccines at the same visit or without waiting 14 days between vaccines.
Prepare for your child’s vaccination visit.
- Get tips for how to support your child before, during, and after the visit.
- Talk to your child before the visit about what to expect.
- Tell the doctor or nurse about any allergies your child may have.
- Comfort your child during the appointment.
- To prevent fainting and injuries related to fainting, your child should be seated or lying down during vaccination and for 15 minutes after the vaccine is given.
- After your child’s COVID-19 vaccination, you will be asked to stay for 15–30 minutes so your child can be observed in case they have a severe allergic reaction and need immediate treatment.
Commonly Asked Questions
While most children have mild to moderate symptoms from COVID-19, it can sometimes lead to death and may cause long term damage to organs even in mild cases. Currently 30% of COVID cases are in children as schools have reopened.
Currently only Pfizer is authorized for use by the FDA in kids 5 and older. Moderna is awaiting its authorization at this time.
Even before getting FDA emergency use authorization, clinical trials showed COVID-19 vaccines to be remarkably safe and effective for adults and teens age 12 and up. Trials involved tens of thousands of volunteers.
The FDA recently gave full approval of the first mRNA vaccine for older teens and adults. Clinical trials for both types of U.S. vaccines are underway for children as young as six months old.
The vaccines continue to be monitored very closely. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say that COVID-19 vaccines will have "the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history."
Yes the Pfizer and Moderna (once approved) vaccines will be the same one that millions of adults have received but in lower doses. These doses have been tested to be the safest low amount that still is 100% effective in protecting children.
COVID-19 vaccines are safe, but there are some short-term side effects your child may experience similar to any other vaccine. In clinical trials, some adolescents had no side effects, and some had side effects similar to those reported by adults. These reactions are just the body’s way of ramping up to fight and can be pain, redness, and swelling where the injection was given, Fever, Chills, Headache, Fatigue, Nausea, Pain in the muscles.
While also rare, some people have had serious allergic reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine. This is why your child will need to wait for 15 to 30 minutes after they have a vaccination. If your child has a reaction, there are medications to quickly treat it.
As for long-term side effects, the CDC says this is unlikely. We have years of research and monitoring on other vaccinations that show side effects almost always happen within six weeks of getting a vaccine.
Pericarditis and myocarditis are medical terms for irritation of the heart. This can happen when there is inflammation from the body ramping up because of the vaccine. This is very rare and actually up to 6,000 times more likely to occur from COVID-19 itself. The treatment of this is usually just ibuprofen which decreases the inflammation.