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Now that the weather is officially brisk, we hope everyone’s fall season is going well! After the success of our flu clinic last week (thank you to all who came!), it’s now time to push on to the COVID-19 vaccine for kids. As many of you may be aware, pediatricians may now vaccinate children aged 5-11 against COVID-19. Of course, West End Pediatrics strongly recommends having your kids receive the vaccine. Per the American Academy of Pediatrics: “Clinical trials in children ages 5-11 years found the vaccine to be 90.7% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19. The vaccine also met immunobridging success criteria for geometric mean neutralizing antibody titers and seroresponse rates. Safety data from the trials, which included more than 3,000 children who received the vaccine, found the most common reactions were pain at the injection site, fatigue and headache. Reactions were mostly mild or moderate. There were no serious adverse events related to the vaccine, including anaphylaxis or myocarditis, although the latter likely was too rare for detection in a trial of that size.” Regarding timing and scheduling: West End Pediatrics has been approved to administer the COVID-19 vaccine, and we are currently awaiting our first shipment, which should be within the next couple of weeks. We will send a follow up email when we receive the vaccine, and scheduling will be easy to do through the patient portal, phone, or email. Finally, the COVID-19 vaccine may be given alongside other vaccines — meaning that it’s completely fine for your child to receive the COVID-19 vaccine on the same day as his or her flu shot (or other shots). Best wishes, Dr. Ariza & the West End Peds Team
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