UAB is entering its first full week of vaccinating children against COVID-19. The University’s hospital began offering shots to youngsters aged five and older last Thursday. Vaccinations are being given by appointment at the Hoover Met Sports Complex and UAB’s injection clinics. Doctor David Kimberlin teaches about pediatric infectious diseases at UAB. He spoke with reporters just before the CDC approved childhood COVID shots. Kimberlin says vaccinations do more than protecting children…
“I think that it also has the added benefit, of vaccinating a five to eleven year old for instance, has the added benefit of protecting those around that five through eleven. The older grandparent who’s at risk, even if vaccinated, still at some disagree of risk of getting COVID,” Kimberlin contended.
Kimberlin extended that line of thinking to people outside the home. Children, he speculated, could pass along the virus to others at venues like Sunday school, where the disease could make its way to other households and vulnerable residents. Kimberlin says vaccinations would help prevent that.
When we’re talking about a highly infectious disease and pandemic and highly transmissible respiratory viral infection, we all have to protect ourselves and in so doing, protecting others,” he said.
A CDC committee says there have been almost two million cases of COVID among five to eleven year olds, as of the beginning of November. Over eight thousand of those infections resulted in hospitalized, and close to one hundred deaths.
