REGINA – Randall Robins breathed a sigh of relief after his three-year-old daughter received her first COVID-19 vaccine.
REGINA – Randall Robins breathed a sigh of relief after his three-year-old daughter received her first COVID-19 vaccine.
“That was good,” Khloe Robin told her mom before looking at the stickers a nurse had just given her: a Scooby-Doo on her arm, a gold star on her shirt and a “well done” sticker on her heart.
The largest was on her left arm, just below a bandage where the needle went in: “I got vaccinated against COVID-19!”
“We’ve been waiting for this for a long time, so it feels good to finally give him some protection,” his mother said Friday.
“We’ll feel more comfortable trying to live a normal life again now that she’s vaccinated. We can just relax a little.”
Khloe was one of the first in Saskatchewan to receive Moderna’s Spikevax vaccine for children ages six months to five years. The doses are a quarter of those approved for adults.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority said it has received 13,000 doses. As of Friday morning, 1,036 appointments were booked for these shots.
Last week, Health Canada approved the use of Spikevax for young children, making it the first vaccine approved for this age group.
Saskatchewan offers the vaccine for young children through walk-in clinics, like the one Robins attended in Regina, and by appointment.
“There’s been a significant number of our younger population in the province that hasn’t been able to access vaccines until now,” Julie Kryzanowski, Saskatchewan’s deputy director of medical health, said earlier this week.
“Fortunately, most children with COVID-19 have milder or asymptomatic disease, but some children, even those who were previously healthy, can become seriously ill and require hospitalization.”
Although serious illness among children is rare, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization has said the number of children hospitalized for COVID-19 skyrocketed as the Omicron variant spread rampantly last winter
The average monthly rate of young children hospitalized due to COVID-19 was 15.9 per 100,000 children under five in the first three months of 2022, compared with 1.4 per 100,000 in first two years of the pandemic.
Other provinces have also announced their rollout plans for vaccinations for young children, with many starting next week. Parents in Manitoba can start booking appointments on Monday and in Ontario they start on Thursday.
Megan Robins-Stewart, sister-in-law of Randall Robins, attended the same clinic in Regina on Friday.
She said throughout the pandemic she is worried about her daughter Isabella, who was born just months after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic two years ago.
“It’s been a little scary … because I also have a daycare, so we have to be very diligent about being safe with COVID,” Robins-Stewart said.
Isabella received her first dose and her mother said they plan to return in eight weeks to complete her series of shots.
“She’s a tough cookie,” Robins-Stewart said of her daughter.
He said his entire family has now had a COVID-19 vaccine, which gives him peace of mind. It has eased her worries about a planned family vacation to British Columbia and being around immunocompromised relatives.
“Everyone needs to do their part in society to protect themselves and to protect the little ones who don’t have a voice,” Robins-Stewart said, encouraging hesitant parents to talk to health professionals about the vaccine for children .
“Get your research from the right people. Don’t go to Google.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on July 22, 2022.
Mickey Djuric, The Canadian Press