Here & Now

J&J Vaccine Update: Vaccinating Children

Julie Willems Van Dijk:

To prioritize the health and safety of our residents and to provide enough time to learn more and make evidence-based decisions about the effect of this news on the vaccine roll-out, we have paused the use of Johnson & Johnson vaccine in Wisconsin. It is important to know that these reactions, we call them adverse events, represent six adverse events out of 6.8 million doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine. That means that nearly 6.8 million Americans have received their shots of Johnson & Johnson without experiencing this adverse reaction. I want to make sure you understand that it is very rare and that we are taking this action out of an abundance of caution.

Frederica Freyberg:

Even without the Johnson & Johnson vaccine still in the mix for now, about a quarter of people in Wisconsin are now fully vaccinated. The focus has mostly been on adult vaccinations, but our next guest says making sure younger children are able to get vaccinated is important to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Jim Conway is professor of Pediatrics at UW School of Medicine and Public Health and an infectious diseases vaccine expert. Thanks very much for being here.

Jim Conway:

Happy to be here. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

First, on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, what should people who have received it know?

Jim Conway:

I think for people that have received it recently, they need to just be aware of reporting side effect symptoms that they consider particularly severe. So for about the two, three weeks after they get the vaccine any kind of severe headache, respiratory problems, especially difficulty breathing or any particular pains really need to be reported and probably evaluated by a medical professional.

Frederica Freyberg:

How might its pause exacerbate vaccine hesitancy?

Jim Conway:

Yeah, it’s a problem but I think it’s also in some ways got a silver lining. I think this shows how seriously we take safety and even just a handful of cases is enough to trigger the system to say let’s pause and take a second and look at this and make sure we’re not missing anything. Remember that most of the vaccine trials are done on 30, 40, 50,000 people. But if there’s something that’s a one in a million or one in ten million side effect, that’s only going to become apparent after you roll out more and more millions of doses. And at 6.5, 7 million doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, this is still early in the game but I think it’s very appropriate to pause and just make sure that we’re not missing something important.

Frederica Freyberg:

Meanwhile, why do you say that it is vital that children get COVID-19 vaccinations as soon as they are cleared to do so?

Jim Conway:

Yeah. I think it’s important that people realize that early on in this pandemic we understood two things. One is kids don’t seem to get very severe disease and they didn’t seem to be major drivers of transmission within communities. That was partially related to the fact that schools had all gone virtual and everybody was being so very careful and everybody was really mitigating and these kids were really being kept in bubbles. I think what we started to realize is that as we’ve opened things up and kids are more active and more engaged and interactive with others, that they certainly can be infected. While they still don’t seem to do poorly with the infection, they can transmit to others and they actually can cause small outbreaks and transmission within their peer groups, but also back into their families and communities. If we really want to get rid of this once and for all, we need herd immunity to be across the board of all age groups and not continue to have a reservoir of vulnerables who are going to continuing to be circulating the disease.

Frederica Freyberg:

I understand trials of the vaccine for younger children are well underway. When might we be expect to be cleared for use for those?

Jim Conway:

It’s interesting they’re doing these in sort of a step-wise manner. They finished up to the 12 to 15-year-olds for Pfizer. Moderna’s almost done with the 12 to 17-year-olds. So I think the approval for those groups should be sometime in early summer. And so we should be able to start immunizing middle and high school kids before we get back into the fall semester. Then they’re gradually working their way into the six to 11-year-olds and then the three to five-year-olds and then finally the six-month-olds to two-year-olds. I think those groups will probably be more toward the end of 2021. Probably the youngest kids, I would say, probably in early 2022.

Frederica Freyberg:

Pfizer vaccine is cleared for people 16 years and older now. How important is it for that age group to get vaccinated?

Jim Conway:

I think while there is vaccine available and while people have a capacity to accommodate those groups, I think it’s really important to start vaccinating as many of those people as quickly as possible. What the goal should be is if we can get through most of those groups in time that when the EUA – the Emergency Use Authorization – for Pfizer amendment that adds on the 12 to 15-year-olds, that then will be essentially the next group we can tackle. I think what we really want to avoid is bottlenecks where all of a sudden, a large group of people are suddenly eligible and there are still other people straggling along. So right now, I think young adults really need to get moving and get themselves immunized and then the 16 and 17-year-olds, mostly so we can clear the capacity so when 12 to 15-year-olds are approved, we can get them moving over the summer.

Frederica Freyberg:

So Wisconsin is at just more than 25% fully vaccinated. At our current pace, are we winning this race against the variants?

Jim Conway:

Yeah. It’s optimistic, but there’s still a little bit of touchiness over these next two months. I mean these variants are surrounding us. Michigan and Minnesota both have had real flair ups. We’re starting to see transmission now in various areas around Wisconsin. We do need to be aggressive about trying to get more of the population immunized as quickly as possible. While we’re in this immunization ramp-up, we do need people to really buckle down and be patient and continue to do their mitigation activities so we don’t see much more spread. We’ve been very successful in the older individuals in Wisconsin. We’re one of the most successful states in that group. We’ve really protected a lot of the most vulnerable. But now we really need compliance and buy-in from people that are going to be the ones that are unfortunately going to be the ones keep transmitting. We are starting to see a little bump-up in hospitalizations around the state. I think these next two months are really pretty critical.

Frederica Freyberg:

We will be watching. Dr. Conway, thank you very much.

Jim Conway:

Thanks for having me.