Palolo teen hopes to show vaccine is safe for severe allergy sufferers

Austin Kikuta celebrates his 15th birthday on Thursday, along with simultaneous birthdays for his dad, Cody (who will be 46), and Kikuta’s great-grandfather Jack Harada, who will be 96.

But Kikuta’s birthday celebration will have to be muted this year and divided among family members because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And he won’t be able to hug his great-grandpa, who is being cared for in Palolo Chinese Home and is “vulnerable.”

Kikuta hasn’t seen his great-grandpa “in months,” he said.

So Kikuta got his first COVID-19 vaccine shot Friday at The Queen’s Medical Center’s mass vaccination site at the Neal Blaisdell Concert Hall, even though he’s at slightly higher risk for complications because of allergies to “dog dander, dust mites, peanuts, tree nuts, all seafood except fish,” according to his mother, Lani Kikuta.

Kikuta has to carry an EpiPen with him, as a precaution, and had to spend an additional 15 minutes being observed for potential complications following his initial shot to his left arm Friday.

But he was unfazed by the effort to get the lives of teenagers like him closer to normal after the Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved adolescents age 12 to 15 to receive Pfizer- BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Kikuta’s mom initially was hesitant about potential reactions because of her son’s allergies. But his allergy doctor at Queen’s said “it was worth the risk,” his mom said.

Kikuta — an incoming sophomore at Kalani High School from Palolo — said he had several motivations.

“I play basketball, and I want to play with my friends,” he said. “And so that we can stop spreading COVID.”

A long line continued to stretch out of the Blaisdell Concert Hall on Friday, and the clinic’s manager, Mary Bedell, expected hundreds of 12- to 15-year-olds to have come in since Monday.

“We’re seeing a large amount of appointments for 12- to 15-year-olds,” she said. “They were expected to come. I think it would mean a little more freedom, a little more getting back to normal. And it’s about safety.”

Kikuta is used to doctors and taking precautions for his allergies.

At the age of 3, his mother said, he broke out in hives after handling peanuts and playing with a dog.

Hours after his first Pfizer shot, Lani Kikuta declared her son “fine. Nothing. He said it’s not even sore (at the injection site).”

“I hope it encourages people,” she said. “That’s what we want.”

Once he gets his second vaccine shot June 4, Kikuta will be the latest member of his extended family to be fully vaccinated, with one exception: his 10-year-old sister, Zoe.

Lani Kikuta is waiting for that day when kids Zoe’s age can be vaccinated, along with everyone else in their extended family.

“She’s the only one in her entire family, fraternal and maternal families, and they’re all vaccinated,” Lani Kikuta said. “It’s only Zoe. As soon as it happens and they pass it, we’ll get her also on board, and then we’ll all be safe and vaccinated.”