David Wohl, MD, talked with the New York Times about a study that will test the Moderna vaccine in children under 12, including babies as young as six months old. He said the study appears well designed and likely to be efficient, but he questioned why children were to be followed for only one year, when adults in Moderna’s study are followed for two years. He also said he was somewhat surprised to see the vaccine being tested in children so young this soon.
“Should we learn first what happens in the older kids before we go to the really young kids?” Wohl asks in the article. Most young children do not become very ill from Covid, he said, though some develop a severe inflammatory syndrome that can be life threatening.
Read the article in the New York Times.
Outreach Needed For Group 4
As North Carolina prepares to expand eligibility to part of Priority Group 4, there are continuing outreach efforts into those who are currently able to get their shots.
“We should not put up barriers to getting vaccine appointments, said Wohl in an ABC-11 interview. “The internet is not for everyone, phone lines can work, but we need not to have wait times of 45 minutes, an hour long. That doesn’t serve people. So as we get more vaccine, we have to ramp up. We have to work with our communities – make this available at churches, make this available at county health departments, make this available for drive-thrus. That’s happening, we just have to do more of it, and with more vaccine, we can do more of this. You can’t do an event when you don’t have vaccine.”
Watch the ABC-11 interview here.
Fears Over Side Effects
An ABC-11 news story says some people are reporting side effects beyond a sore arm after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
“I think what most people are concerned about is feeling sick,” said David Wohl, MD.
“For dose 1 of the Moderna and Pzifer vaccines, and even the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which is a one-and-done vaccine, most (people) don’t experience anything,” he said.
Nonetheless, some people are reporting large, blotchy rashes post-dose and it’s been dubbed the “COVID arm.” Wohl says this is “really, really, really rare – one in thousands and thousands.”
Watch the ABC-11 report here.