Pfizer Postpones Little Kid Vax, Parents Immediately Enter Doom Spiral

Hello, and welcome to another installment of doom and despair on a Friday afternoon! The tickets are free!

Pfizer, a name I have said more in the last 12 months than I have in my previous 32.5 years here on Earth, pulled back on their EUA application for the Covid vaccine for kids under 5 today. Though earlier data had shown the vaccine did not illicit enough of an immune response in kids ages 2 to 4 with just two doses, Pfizer planned to file with the data they had in order to get the first two doses approved, which would have given them time to vaccinate kids while waiting for a third dose to be approved.

But now, experts are saying there just wasn’t enough data, and that it made sense for Pfizer to pull back and wait until they had more information for the FDA. That... makes sense to me. As much as I trust that the Covid vaccine, when it’s ready, will be safe for my 3-year-old, I am also never going to say “don’t research too much into this drug before giving it to my kid.” So I’m ok to wait and see — and I’m holding off on the rage tweets for the moment.

But plenty of the other members of the Parent Twitter tribe had thoughts.

Look, I get it. We have been through the ringer. Masks on! Masks off! Vaccine mandates are coming! There will be no vaccine mandates! Just when you thought your second grader could see her teacher’s smile for the first time all year, denied! Follow the science! Except the science is ever-changing and we just made you walk in a circle, haHA!

Look I want my 3-year-old vaccinated. But I’m taking heart that the experts are responding to today’s Pfizer announcement by saying that more data being a good thing. A vaccine is nothing to rush, especially one that involves small children at such a low risk of contracting a terrible case of Covid-19.

I get it. I have a 7-year-old — fully vaxxed — and a 3-year-old and a baby due in three months. I am ready for all the vaccines. I’ve been boosted during pregnancy, all of my family members are triple-vaxxed — we know why vaccines are important and why they matter. And it’s terrifying to think of immunocompromised families and children, of those who have felt so trapped and stuck and just want to go out for ice cream or take their toddler to Target without any stress.

But we have to believe that when the data is all there — and I mean all of it — a vaccine will follow. And in the meantime, we can hope for falling case counts, more vaccine education, and spring. (Honestly, how much of our despair is just from being oppressed by winter, I ask you.)