Like many vaccinated people, Bonnie McCarthy and her family are starting to do things they did before the pandemic, such as eating in restaurants and going on vacations.
McCarthy, of Easton, is vaccinated, along with her husband and two children. But her youngest son, Aiden, isn’t because children under the age of 12 years old cannot yet receive one of the COVID-19 shots
When the whole family goes out to dinner, it is not recommended they wear masks indoors, except for her 11-year-old. Her son follows practices that were popular at the height of the pandemic, before the vaccines came out, such as not touching his face and washing his hands.
As a growing number of adults receive their COVID-19 vaccinations, life is returning to normal for many. But for families with young children, there are still precautions to take.
Children are much less likely to get seriously sick from COVID-19. But nearly 4 million children in the United States have tested positive for the virus since the start of the pandemic, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Since children have different immune systems and were not involved in the original vaccine clinical trials, curating a vaccine for them will require more testing and a different dosage. A vaccine may be available to children as young as 6 months this fall.
But that means it’s mostly up to parents this summer to determine what they feel comfortable doing with their unvaccinated children.
“As a parent you just have to decide what you think is safe for your child,” said Dr. Nathan Hagstrom, chairperson of pediatrics at Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital.
Parents are balancing their children’s safety along with their mental health. After more than a year of lockdown, children are eager to get back to activities that were put on hold or scaled back.
“These kids have lost a lot and, within reason we’re doing everything we can to get back to the life that they knew prior to the start COVID,” McCarthy said, adding that her son plans to get vaccinated when he is eligible.
The CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics suggest children over 2 years old wear a mask when they are in public, especially indoors. Hagstrom said when outside, children do not need to wear masks because the risk of transmission is low. Social “pods” of families or friends who are seen consistently as a small group also reduce risk of COVID-19 transmission, so relaxed masking with them is fine, he said. Planning visits to reconnect with vaccinated family members mask-less is also considered OK.
“It’s just really those mixed crowds or crowds of people you don’t know, especially indoors, in public places where it’s still advised that children wear a mask,” Hagstrom said.
McCarthy said as a family they still do everything with their unvaccinated son. When entering other households with children who are also unvaccinated, she said she feels safe as long as the adults in the house are vaccinated.
“With it being warmer weather, there’s a lot more to do in terms of outside activities, vacations, things of that nature,” McCarthy said. “We do have to be mindful.”
The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services’ acting secretary Meg Snead said the state is advising that children with underlying conditions wear a mask in both indoor and outdoor settings because risk of severe complications from COVID-19 are heightened.
“The more people unvaccinated children interact with and the longer that interaction, the higher the risk of the spread of COVID-19,” Snead said
As of Sunday, the COVID-19 positivity rate remains around 0.7% for counties in the Lehigh Valley. More than 74% of eligible Lehigh Valley residents are vaccinated.
Snead has two children — ages 4 and 7. She said her family is erring on the side of caution. When they went to a Philadelphia Phillies game, her children wore masks on the concourse and in the bathrooms, where they could have prolonged exposure to unvaccinated people.
“We all deserve to have a bit of a summer in terms of being able to be outside or gathering with people that we haven’t seen for some time,” Snead said.
LoriAnn Fehnel, a parent of a 10-year-old and 11-year-old in the Whitehall-Coplay School District, knows just how serious COVID-19 can be.
Fehnel and both children have been sick with COVID-19. Fehnel was in the ICU for 24 days. Her daughter was sick for three and a half weeks and even had to get neck injections to treat neck, back and vision problems.
Outdoor activities do not make her nervous. Her son has been playing baseball this year, and when the team is in the dugout, they wear masks.
But Fehnel worries what school will look like in the fall if most young children still aren’t vaccinated.
“What fears me as a parent is inside the classroom where you’re surrounded by a copious amount of kids who are not wearing masks,” Fehnel said. “Is it going to cause a flare up in a classroom where everybody’s going to get sick?”
Morning Call reporter Clare Fonstein can be reached at cfonstein@mcall.com
