Parents Anxious to Vaccinate Young Children Describe an Agonizing Wait

A committee of experts advising the F.D.A. voted on Wednesday to recommend that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna pediatric coronavirus vaccines be authorized for young children. If the rest of the regulatory process moves swiftly, children could begin getting the shots as soon as next week. Most parents are not so eager to get their young children vaccinated, surveys have found. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey this spring found that about two in five parents said they planned to wait and see how the vaccine works for others before deciding what to do. And 38 percent said they would definitely not get their children vaccinated, or would do so only if required. A number of parents who wrote that they were in no rush to get their children vaccinated said it was because the children had already been infected with the virus. But at Wednesday’s F.D.A. committee meeting, a Moderna official said the company’s study found that young children who got Omicron and were vaccinated had greater levels of protection, a conclusion backed by outside research.