No one dressed up for the Covid clinic at the Waterbury Ambulance Service Thursday, but the elation there rivaled other momentous occasions.
Toddlers and babies cried, but parents practically cheered. For more than two years, families with children under age 5 had waited for a Covid vaccine to become available for that age group. The nation’s littlest people — and their families — were relegated to outdoor gatherings and masking, while vaccinated people were told they could let go of those precautions.
“It’s huge,” said Jocelyn Bahr of Jericho, mother of two. “I feel like our lives have been on hold and I feel like children in that age group were completely forgotten about. We decided to say that we didn’t have to wear masks, but kids in that age group were not vaccinated.”
On June 18, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Covid vaccines for children ages 6 months to 5 years, the last age group to be approved. And on Wednesday, the vaccines became available to this age group in Vermont.
Bahr, an early childhood educator on summer break, said the clinic in Waterbury was her first opportunity to get a vaccination for her youngest son, Henry, 2. His 5-year-old sister, Josephine, was also there to get a vaccine booster.
“Mommy could cry, too, I’m so excited,” Jocelyn Bahr told her sobbing children as she tried to soothe them.
Like Bahr, Gregory Schorder and Marisa Ratigan couldn’t wait to get their 8-month-old son Ronan vaccinated. The Killington residents had closely followed news about vaccine releases, and began looking for a shot almost as soon as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved Pfizer and Moderna shots for young children, they said.
To protect Ronan, Ragitan and Schorder have mostly stayed home, avoiding crowds and indoor gatherings. Vaccinating Ronan will again make it possible for the family to go to museums, restaurants and extended family gatherings.
Ragitan sees it as a kind of reentry to society.
“If they’ll have us,” she joked.
About 220 young children had received their shot as of Friday morning, according to the Vermont Department of Health. Roughly 26,000 children in that age group are eligible for the vaccine.
Most parents likely will choose to have their young children vaccinated at their pediatrician’s office, predicted Monica Ogelby, immunization program manager at the Vermont Department of Health. Pediatricians have already received vaccine shipments, but some haven’t started offering shots yet.
Ogelby said some parents plan to get their young children vaccinated on their next visit to the pediatrician, and some kids are in the process of recovering from Covid and can’t get the shot quite yet.
Lindsey Browning and her mom, Chris Caldwell, paused their vacation week briefly to get vaccinations for Browning’s 20-month-old twins, Nick and Amelia. When the thigh jab came, the twins each got their own soothing adult.
As the sobbing stopped, mother and daughter reflected on the possibilities ahead. Nick and Amelia were born in the thick of the pandemic, they said. They’ve never visited a restaurant or gone to a museum. There were no playdates or mommy-and-me groups.
Clutching brand-new vaccination cards for her toddlers, Browning suddenly thought of another first: A family trip to Georgia.
It will be Nick and Amelia’s first airplane ride.
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June 25, 2022 at 04:29AM
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As Vermont begins vaccinating young children against Covid, some parents see possibilities - vtdigger.org
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