Vaccinating young kids may take time but experts ready to discuss parents' concerns

With provinces and territories now rolling out plans to COVID-19 vaccinate children aged five to 11, many parents eagerly signed their children up to be among the first in line. 

But not everyone is pouncing on the opportunity. Some parents have more questions before their kids get the jab. 

Nathan Maharaj and his wife were up bright and early Tuesday registering their nine-year-old son for his first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in Toronto.

He's excited Edmund can feel safer returning to karate classes, for instance, and will feel more comfortable planning visits to Ripley's Aquarium, Ontario Science Centre or the movies.  

"It's a threshold we needed to cross to do things that we were comfortable doing before and as things are opening up again," Maharaj said. 

"We don't want to be going there and then, you know, for the next 72 hours praying for no symptoms of anything to emerge and then also isolating from others because who knows what we're carrying."

In Coquitlam, B.C., Mike Romaniuk is digging through news sites and studies about how both COVID-19 and the vaccines for it are affecting children. While everyone in his family is up to date with B.C.'s recommended immunizations and received this season's flu shot, he is still unsure about the COVID-19 vaccine for his daughters Harper and Georgia, who are respectively aged four and two.

"There's definitely an aspect of 'I don't want to be first for my kids, I don't want to risk,' but I recognize on both sides there's risk. Not doing it is a risk as well," Romaniuk  said.

"The more data, the more confidence, I think, especially if it's tabulated or presented in a way that's easily understandable and comparable."

He would love to be able see the studies Canadian health officials are analyzing to create their recommendations for children, for instance, saying that for him it would help instill more confidence. 

"There's a lot of parents that I interact with that have concerns. They're scared to ask [questions], scared to speak out. There's quite a stigma around it," he said.

The drive to vaccinate younger children against COVID-19 could prove tougher and perhaps take longer than earlier age groups, but medical experts say they're ready to answer all questions and meet parents and caregivers where they're at.

Before the pandemic, the term vaccine hesitancy was most often discussed in the context of parental decision-making, according to medical anthropologist Ève Dubé, a researcher at the Quebec National Institute of Public Health who has studied it for more than a decade. 

She said before the pandemic about one-third of parents were vaccine hesitant.