Children shouldn't wait to get the COVID-19 vaccine, doctor says

An infectious disease specialist says there's no need to wait before getting the COVID-19 pediatric vaccine for your kids.

Dr. Lisa Barrett, an assistant professor at Dalhousie University, told CBC News: Compass that the vaccine went through a rigorousapproval process.

"There were big, extensive trials and a regulatory review done with Health Canada before this vaccine was approved and those trials looked specifically at how safe this vaccine was for five to 11 year olds," Barrett said.

"They found that the safety was impressive and the side effects low and the effectiveness ... very good at protecting children from COVID."

Barrett said the approval of the vaccine wasn't a "foregone conclusion," and that children do need to get vaccinated while the pandemicrages on.

"We're still very much in a pandemic. There's still COVID-19 virus," she said. "Although rare, there are severe side-effects to COVID-19 infection even for children. Not frequent, but it does happen. And therefore I would not suggest waiting for your children to have the vaccine for another six months, especially given the millions of children who have now received it in different countries."

On Tuesday, the province said 523 children had received their first does of the pediatric vaccine so far. It said there were also 1,350 appointments booked for this week.

Barrett said low vaccination rates and a greater number of cases are great conditions for variants such as the omicron todevelop.

"This virus is an RNA virus, kind of like flu, except it does mutate quite a bit," she said. "Public health measures for the next number of months are still needed to keep virus levels low and for us to know where the virus is through testing and surveillance.

"We can help keep the virus in one place or more stable by keeping viruses low and vaccine rates high."

Barrett said countries are better prepared for the omicron variant thanks to good surveillance systems that have been developed during the pandemic.

"Do I think this is a leg-up situation compared to earlier in the pandemic? Absolutely," she said. "How concerned should we be? Well, we do need more information and data over the next few days and weeks to figure out exactly what we do about this variant," she said.

Barrett said it is highly unlikely the current vaccine won't provide some protection against the new variant.