Editorial: Get good info on vaccine for keiki

If established patterns play out as they have previously, officials for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are on the verge of signing off on the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11.

This means it’s time for Hawaii parents to get the best information they can from a credible source: a medical provider who knows their child’s particular condition and can advise on issues of safety.

Gov. David Ige, speaking Monday on the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s Spotlight Hawaii webcast, said the state is expecting an initial shipment of 40,000 doses, enough to cover about a third of the children in this age group.

The vaccine, about one-third the volume of the shot given to adolescents and adults, was cleared on Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration. The CDC is expected in the coming days to give the final directive before the doses can be dispatched.

Whether or not Hawaii residents have children this young in their household, this is a momentous step.

Clearly, parents are the decisionmakers where their children’s health is concerned, and not all will agree to get them the shot when it becomes available, likely by around Nov. 8.

But even if, as some have projected, only around half opt in at this point, that will still be about 50,000-plus children, comprising several percentage points added to Hawaii’s proportion of fully vaccinated residents.

Nearly 80% of the state’s entire population has had at least one dose, so bringing in at least part of the younger group will push the state into a safer immunity range and enable more restrictions to be relaxed.

That said, keiki vaccination is not mandatory, regardless of how the vaccine is distributed. Ige also said Monday that officials are considering clinics at school campuses, and should that happen, parents or guardians must provide their authorization.

Nobody, then, is being forced to vaccinate their children.

Before any responsible adults exercise their prerogative over kids, however, they owe these children careful study — not just cobbling together pseudo- facts they may find floating around social media. What parents think they know about this disease may not be good enough.

To begin with, scientists have learned a lot about the coronavirus since those first impressions at the start of the pandemic, when many assumed children were not in danger of serious infections. Fortunately, this is still the most common outcome.

But further studies have shown that children with medical complications may be more likely to require critical care, such as severe respiratory disease and various inflammatory conditions. This is why sound medical advice should help parents weigh the risks.

Should parents decide against vaccinating their children now, they need to redouble efforts to protect keiki in other ways. As adults, getting vaccinated themselves would certainly help insulate the family unit from infection, as would paying more attention to hand-washing, masking, distancing and other precautions.

They must also acknowledge that some social activities may still require vaccinations and that their children would be excluded. Everyone should hope that before too long, the community infection rate will drop down low enough that many restrictions could be phased out, this virus receding at least enough that it is not a principal public-health worry.

But as long as this coronavirus is around — and the delta variant has all but ensured that it will be around for a long time — vaccination should remain a top option. Adults should continue to track this disease on behalf of keiki, learning about its long-term effects, and act accordingly.