COVID-19 vaccines for teens: what you need to know (2024)

Now that COVID-19 vaccines are available to everyone 16 years old and older, let’s talk about your teens and COVID-19 vaccines.

You might have already received an email from your school's principal with information on where you can take your teenager to get the COVID-19 vaccine. If you live in the Central Shenandoah Health District, parentscan make an appointment for their teenager at pharmacies (see below), one ofAugusta Health's mass vaccine clinicsor clinics set up by the health department, such as those at Rockingham County Fairgrounds or at the Staunton-Augusta Health Department.

With the news of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine stopped due to a rare and deadly side effect, maybe you aren't sure what to do?

Statistically speaking, the chance of any person having the type of blood clotsthat resulted in the death of six women, possibly a seventh in Virginia, is one in a million.

Dr. Danny Avula, Virginia’s state vaccine coordinator, said the CDC and FDA are doing exactly what they should be doing.

The pause in administering the J&J vaccine allows time for clinicians to learn how to treat these rare blood clots, which need to be handled differently than the standard treatment of care.

The argument for vaccination

Until we achieve herd immunity, the virus keeps mutating, and with each new mutation challenges develop in terms of the variants becoming more transmissible andpossibly more deadly.These mutations also present a challenge to current vaccine effectiveness. The U.K.variant is now the dominant strain in the United States and while vaccines are effective against this mutation, this is not the case with the South African variant. As a result, vaccine manufacturers are working to update vaccines or add boosters in order to provide protection against the growing number of mutations.

While vaccinating the younger population protects others, it also helps to stop further mutations. When it comes to risk versus benefit, wait and see is a short-term benefit with potentially deadly long-term risks.

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Which vaccine is safe for my teen?

There are three vaccines authorized by the FDA for emergency use: Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.Only one is currently approved for teenagers 16 years old and older: Pfizer.Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are approved for anyone 18 years and older.

Pfizer conducted clinical trials for vaccine use in adolescents and teens 12 to 15 years old and submitted their findings to the FDA for emergency use approval for this age group.Studies are underway for the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Pfizer has also started clinical trials and studies for children under the age of 12.

“Moderna and Pfizer are just now starting to recruit for age groups younger than 12,” Avula said. But these are smaller trials at a slower pace, he added.

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What about my kids in college?

Set up in sequence, based on each school's calendar,health districts are setting up vaccination clinics for college and universities in order to vaccinate students before they leave school for the summer.

When it comes to COVID and its impact, Avula said he is not as worried about the individual impact on young adults.

"By and large, they're going to have really mild disease. It's really the reality — college students are the drivers of transmission. They are spreaders of disease."

The priority is to get them vaccinated before they spread COVID-19 all over the state and all over the country, he said.

"It gives us our best chance to not have a spreader event in the upcoming weeks."

If the vaccine is two doses, health districts want to make sure there is enough time to fully vaccinate out-of-state students first. Virginia based students have a little more flexibility in terms of getting that second dose done at their local health department or pharmacy if there's not enough time to do it at a mass clinic on campus.

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Getting a vaccine at pharmacies

There are more than 300 pharmacies receiving vaccines through the Federal Retail Pharmacy Partnership, which has the ability to expand to over 1,000 pharmacies across Virginia.

Pharmacies include:CVS Health, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Walmart, Sam's Club, Safeway, Giant, Food Lion, Martin's, Kroger, Albertsons and a network of independent pharmacies.

How do I sign up at a pharmacy?Individuals who are interested in getting vaccinated at a local pharmacy can visitVaccineFinder.org or VaccinateVirginia.gov to findappointments at a pharmacy near them.

FDA-approved vs. FDA-authorized for emergency use

Emergency Use Authorization is a process the FDA uses to allow drug and vaccine companies to apply for use of a vaccine with limited data on safety and effectiveness, explains Laura Lee Wight, Central Shenandoah Health District’s population health community coordinator.

“We know that there were very robust clinical trials conducted and continueto be conducted about the COVID-19 vaccine. But what it means is that it allows the vaccine to become more available in use of an emergency, such as a pandemic. And it allows for a quicker than usual approval and licensing process.”

To make this decision the FDA and advisory groups weighedthe benefits of the vaccines with relatively limited data versus the risk and severity of the pandemic, said Wight.The benefits outweigh any risks in authorizing it within a shorter timeframe. The current situation is more dangerous than allowing time to have long-term studies, she explained.

COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers will still need to obtain other approvals in order to become fully FDA-approved. This process means getting Biological License Application approvals to continue marketing a vaccine, which requires up to a year of study.

Even though long-term studies haven't been done, the short-term studies and trials absolutely must show the vaccine is effective and is safe, said Wight.

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Risk/benefit analysis

"Yes, the vaccine is new. We need to have these long-term studies. But we don't know what the long-term effects are of COVID-19," said Wight.

Teenagers have gotten COVID-19. Some of them have had serious health conditions because of the disease. Some have pre-existing medical conditions or a disability that put them at severe risk for hospitalization or death, she said.

"So, itreally is a risk/benefit analysis.

"The risk here needs to include the fact that our teens, our young people, in society are active, and they are a part of our community, and we need to protect our most vulnerable in our community," said Wight.

And the way we do that is achieving herd immunity.

“We're going to need everybody who is eligible for the vaccine to consider getting it and really follow through and get it in order for us to achieve that herd immunity to protect those most vulnerable people.”

Vaccine technology

“Yes, the vaccine is relatively new, but we can't forget that the vaccine is built off of vaccine immunization technology that has been around for decades that we've used for other vaccines,” said Wight.

Even though Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine is relatively new, mRNA technology has been used in other vaccines that have proven to be safe and effective, such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) vaccine.

We've been using vaccines for decades, she said.

“They're built off of the building blocks of other vaccines and other vaccine technologies. We know that they're very safe, and that they're effective."

All three vaccines are 100% effective in preventing death and severe illness that causes hospitalization.

"That's what a vaccine is supposed to do. It's supposed to protect our life."

Another consideration Wight said is that these vaccines are on the global stage.

“So there are plenty of processes and systems and programs in place to keep an eye on vaccine safety, especially the COVID-19 vaccines available to our global community."

In the U.S., the CDC and FDA review every single case of reported death or reported severe reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine.

Talk to your pediatrician

If parents have any personal health questions in regards to the vaccines, they should talk to their child’s pediatrician about which vaccine might be best for their individual child's medical history, said Wight.

“The hope is that the vaccine becomes more available in doctors’ offices, so that eventually you won't have to go to a mass clinic to get the COVID-19 vaccine. It will just be a part of your routine vaccines you get.”

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Monique Calello (she/her) is The News Leader's health reporter. Story ideas? I want to hear them. Please email me atmcalello@newsleader.com. Follow me on Twitter@moniquecalello.