Shots for the youngest age group have been available for two months, but only about 6% of those children have had their first dose.
Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Kieran Moore said they are lower than the numbers he thought he would see so far.
“I definitely want more families to consider vaccinating their children from six months to four years old,” specifically, high-risk children, he said in an interview.
“We know that we have a higher than 5% rate of children with an underlying medical condition that may predispose them to a worse outcome related to COVID and would absolutely encourage these parents to consider talking to their health care provider about risks and benefits”.
Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist and associate professor in the school of health sciences at the University of Ottawa, said there are many factors likely at play in low uptake, but he would have expected an even higher number by now.
“I’m not surprised it’s low, I’m surprised it’s this low,” he said.
Many people believe the false narratives that the pandemic is over and that children do not get sick when infected with COVID-19, said Deonandan, who also pointed to misinformation about the vaccine’s side effects.
How messages about vaccine safety and effectiveness are communicated to parents matters, Deonandan said.
“That should be phrased like this: ‘Parents, this is your decision to make and I want to give you all the transparent information I can so you can make a good choice here,’” he said.
“It’s a delicate balancing act here that we have to do when we talk about this. You don’t want to be perceived as putting a foreign thing in your child’s body, as we see the population is very sensitive to that kind of narrative. We don’t want to be seen as terrorists trying to force the world back into lockdown…. But at the same time, you just want to support the overall health of the child.”
The city of Toronto pulled a series of videos this week about children’s vaccinations against COVID-19 after someone suggested that children couldn’t go out to play with friends if they weren’t vaccinated.
“This video missed the mark on this message and should not have been published,” spokesman Brad Ross wrote in a statement.
“A series of five videos aimed at parents and carers about children’s vaccines has been paused while each is reviewed to ensure the messages are clear and unambiguous: vaccines are available for children and they are safe.”
Pediatricians are the ones parents should be listening to right now, Deonandan said.
“No one trusts epidemiologists anymore,” he said. “They no longer trust government doctors. Nobody trusts virologists anymore. They only trust their child’s pediatrician, and those are the people who should be having that conversation.”
Moore said the province is hearing from parents that one-on-one conversations are the most effective communication tool.
“When you visit your primary care provider, your pediatrician, you get your standard vaccinations at two months, four months, six months, 12, 15, 18 months — these are all opportunities for families to ask questions about the COVID vaccination” , he said.
“We have work to do to continue our (official) message. It will accelerate as we head indoors and head into the fall as we realize the risk of transmission will increase.”
Dr. Paul Roumeliotis, medical officer of health for the Eastern Ontario Health Unit, said he hoped vaccination for young children would pick up by fall, as he had anticipated an overall uptake of about 25 to 30 per cent.
He attributed the slow start to the rollout that began over the summer, misinformation circulating about the vaccine, and a general reluctance on the part of parents when it comes to children this age.
“I’m a pediatrician, I know parents are always hesitant — especially with younger kids and babies — whether it’s a vaccine or any drug that comes out,” he said.
“One of the messages we have to tell people is that although this vaccine is not as effective as we would like for person-to-person transmission, it is certainly very effective against serious disease and complications.”
Dr. Anna Banerji, a pediatrician, infectious disease specialist and associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, said there is also an element of complacency.
“(People think), ‘Oh, COVID isn’t that bad. It’s just a mild cold in little kids, I don’t really have to worry about it,” he said.
“There’s a lot, I think, of denial that kids, especially younger kids, can get it and get very, very sick with it.”
Public Health Ontario said in its most recent report that there was a marked increase in hospitalizations for infants under one year of age, with 17 children in the week from Sept. 4 to Sept. 10 compared to eight the previous week. Since the start of the pandemic, 1,268 children in this age group have been hospitalized for COVID-19 – a much higher rate than for older children and teenagers.
Children have a pretty good chance of contracting COVID-19 now that schools are back in business, and it’s not just the immediate and possible long-term effects on young children themselves that parents need to keep in mind, Banerji said.
“They can also pass it on to other kids, they can pass it on at home, they can pass it on to the grandparents,” he said.
“It’s something that could significantly affect someone’s life. And so I would do everything I could to reduce the risk of transmission, which is really what vaccination is.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on September 22, 2022.
