Texas youth show up in 'amazing' numbers as state tries to vaccinate 1.7M

 In the first week that Texas adolescents were eligible to be vaccinated for COVID-19, after a year of pandemic-induced isolation from their families, peers and classrooms, more than 100,000 kids ages 12-15 poured into pediatricians’ offices, vaccine hubs and school gyms across Texas to get their shots.

One of them was Austin Ford, a 14-year-old in Houston whose mother is a pediatric nurse, whose father has a disability that makes him vulnerable to COVID, and who lost a family member to the virus last month.

“It was a no-brainer for us,” said his mother, Sherryl Ford, 46, who took Austin to Texas Children’s Hospital for his shot last Friday, less than 24 hours after the Pfizer vaccine was approved for emergency use for his age group. “I have friends who took their kids the night before.”

In the days since the federal approval on May 13, about 6% of Texas children ages 12-15 have gotten a dose of the Pfizer vaccine. It took more than a month to reach that percentage for eligible adults last winter when the vaccination effort began.

It marks a promising start, health officials and others say, to the state’s first attempt to inoculate Texas’ estimated 1.7 million adolescents, who have endured isolation and virtual-learning challenges for more than a year.

“It’s amazing,” said Dr. Seth Kaplan, a Frisco pediatrician and president of the Texas Pediatric Society, which represents about 4,600 pediatricians and other child medicine professionals.

COVID-19 vaccines are not mandatory for Texas students. Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott also banned schools from requiring masks starting in early June, which Kaplan said could be another motivator to get kids vaccinated before in-person school resumes in the fall. Local governments are also banned from enforcing mask ordinances.

For kids like Austin Ford, being fully inoculated by summer means the return of fun with his friends, and all the other social trappings of the early teenage years: trips to the water park, neighborhood pools, group sports and, in Austin’s case, sleepaway camp at an idyllic Hill Country site with one of the state’s longest ziplines.

“It just opened up the world to us, and to him,” his mother said. “It would have been a hard summer [without the vaccine].”

Joshua Martin, 17, and his mother Teddi Martin receive their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at McKinney ISD Stadium and Community Event Center on Thursday. Credit: Ben Torres for the Texas Tribune

Austin said he would have asked for the vaccine if his parents hadn’t already decided he would get one.

“I think it’s probably because his mom is this crazy nurse that doesn't want anyone to get sick,” Sherryl Ford said, laughing. “And another thing, too: We have worked this hard to keep our family safe all year. We might as well bring it on home.”

Some parents remain hesitant

In Texas, where the issue of vaccinating children for any kind of illness has sparked intense political debate, parents are permitted to opt out of vaccines required to attend public schools, as well as opt in to a statewide immunization registry that tracks childhood vaccinations.

But while Texas health officials have expressed concern about what they describe as a growing anti-vaccine movement, between 97% and 99% of Texas schoolchildren are fully vaccinated, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

State health officials don’t expect that high of a number with the COVID vaccine, at least not right away, but say that number signals a high rate of general vaccine acceptance among Texas parents, said Chris Van Deusen, spokesperson for DSHS.

The state is doing research to determine the best messages and outreach for parents, who will be targeted in a public awareness campaign over the summer, Van Deusen said.

Texas pediatricians have also been talking with parents for months about vaccinating their kids, in preparation for its availability to that age group, Kaplan said.

While some Texas parents are adamantly anti-vaccine or don’t believe it’s safe for children, others have different reasons for opposing shots for their kids.

James Davis of Dallas is vaccinated against COVID himself, but says vaccinating his kids, ages 11 and 7, would be a waste of shots because children are already at low risk for catching it and don’t tend to get seriously ill if they do.

Still, Davis figures his children will get vaccinated against COVID at some point when they eventually become eligible, and says he won’t fight it if the family pediatrician recommends it.

"If I had a child with asthma, diabetes or any other high-risk condition, I would vaccinate them as soon as our pediatrician said 'go,’ ” Davis said. "I'm very pro-vax, generally. I think that vaccinating millions of kids is a poor use of emergency vaccines and leaves millions of much higher-risk people at risk on a global scale."

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/24/texas-children-covid-vaccine/