On Oct. 29, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11.

On Nov. 2, "after a systematic review of available data," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended the vaccine for this age group, expanding eligibility to about 28 million kids across the country.

Where can kids get vaccinated?

The vaccine ordering process is different for kids, as the dose is one-third of that used for people age 12 and older. These vaccines, which come in multiple-dose vials with orange caps to distinguish them from adult vaccines, aren't available everywhere.

Some pediatric offices in southeastern Connecticut are offering the vaccine — Gales Ferry Pediatrics, for example, will start this Thursday — while others aren't.

UCFS Healthcare is holding vaccine clinics for kids ages 5 to 11 from 9 a.m. to noon on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 47 Town St., Norwich, no appointment necessary.

The Stop & Shop at 220 Route 12 in Groton is holding a vaccine clinic from 3 to 7 p.m. this Friday, with appointment scheduling available at stopandshop.com/covid-vaccine. The Big Y at 79 Stonington Road in Mystic is also a pediatric vaccine site.

Walgreens and CVS also offer vaccine appointments for children. Check their websites, bit.ly/wlgrnskv for Walgreens and bit.ly/cvskvax for CVS, for locations and availability.

Yale New Haven Health is scheduling inoculations for this age group at six sites across the state, including the Northeast Medical Group office at 194 Howard St. in New London. To schedule an appointment, visit covidvaccine.ynhh.org or call 1 (833) 275-9644.

What is availability like?

Eric Arlia, senior director of pharmacy for Hartford HealthCare, said compared to the struggle to get doses for adults in the spring, "it really feels like this is going to be different. I think the government did a really nice job of getting those doses produced ahead of time."

Arlia said Thursday that Hartford HealthCare ordered twice so far and got its full request both times, "so I really don't think we're going to have any supply issues with this vaccine, which is nice."

Connecticut Department of Public Health spokesperson Christopher Boyle said Friday there are 96,900 doses of pediatric vaccine in the state — 51,600 ordered through state allocation and 44,700 through pharmacies. He said the state has processed orders for an additional 17,700 doses.

As of Friday — before Hartford HealthCare hosted pediatric clinics across the state — a little more 10,000 children had been vaccinated, Boyle said. That's out of an estimated 277,630 children between the ages of 5 and 11 living in the state.

How do parents feel?

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey conducted last month found that 27% of parents of kids ages 5 to 11 were eager to vaccinate their kid right away, while 33% said they would wait and see and 30% would definitely not get their kid vaccinated.

Among parents surveyed, 76% said they were very or somewhat concerned that not enough is known about long-term effects of the vaccine in children, and 71% were concerned their child might experience serious side effects.

A survey of 1,745 parents in February and March, published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that 46% of parents were very or somewhat likely to get their kids vaccinated, 42% somewhat or very unlikely, and 12% unsure, with greater likelihood of vaccination among parents of older children.

Connecticut has one of the highest overall vaccination rates in the country, with more than 70% of the population fully vaccinated. A Sacred Heart Univeristy poll of 1,000 Connecticut residents conducted in October found that 58.6% of respondents would support a requirement that students in kindergarten through 12th grade be vaccinated, while 30% didn't and 11.4% were unsure.

"We as a society have to come together to be all vaccinated — to protect those who can't be vaccinated, to protect those who are weaker," said Cassie Libardi of Ledyard, who got her 10-year-old and 5-year-old vaccinated Nov. 6 in New London through Yale New Haven Health. "We have friends with cancer, we have infants in our family who can't be vaccinated."

Libardi said she has only two people guiding medical decisions for her children: Their pediatrician, and a family member who is a pediatrician.

"It's not TV, it's not a political party," she said, "it's two medical professionals who we trust."

Groton resident Michael Whitehouse said he told his 7-year-old daughter that vaccines give her superpowers. Bridgid Joseph of Noank said she told her daughter, who didn't want a shot, "You hear a lot, 'Not all superheroes wear capes,' but you know what they wear? Band-aids."

Asked about her reaction to the CDC approving the vaccine for younger kids, Joseph commented, "Oh my gosh, I think I popped a bottle of champagne and I screeched with delight and I immediately went on to book my oldest daughter, Violet, who's 6."

Violet, who has severe asthma, got her first shot this past Tuesday at the CVS in New London. Joseph, an advanced practice nurse who recently started a new job with Lawrence + Memorial and Westerly hospitals, said even though laypeople might not see all the numbers and data that come in for emergency use authorization approval, there's lots of research.

Ledyard resident Tracy Kuhl feels the vaccine is too new and there isn't enough information or evidence of safety yet, and she's concerned about long-term effects. She isn't vaccinated, and she has no plans to get her 11-year-old or 14-year-old vaccinated.

"I don't believe my children are at risk of life-threatening conditions due to (COVID-19), so I would rather let their immune systems work on their own before I introduce something that's relatively new," Kuhl said. She said her children "have had all of the other childhood vaccines, because those were around for decades."

One local parent said her kids want to take a wait-and-see approach, and she's OK with that. Another mother said she got the COVID-19 vaccine and her kids have their other shots, but she is going to wait on giving them the COVID-19 vaccine because she feels it is too new.

Dr. Foong-Yi Lin, a Northeast Medical Group pediatrician practicing in Gales Ferry, said the three most common reasons for hesitancy she hears are that it's a new vaccine, we don't know the long-term side effects of the vaccine, and illness in younger kids isn't as serious.

She said even though it's a new vaccine, the mRNA mechanism had been in the works for years, and Lin strongly encourages that children get vaccinated.

What are the risks to kids from contracting COVID-19?

As of Oct. 10, more than 1.9 million COVID-19 cases and 8,300 hospitalizations among children ages 5 to 11 had been reported to the CDC.

The most common underlying medical conditions for kids hospitalized with COVID-19 were chronic lung disease — mostly asthma — and obesity, the CDC reported, but 32% of kids hospitalized with COVID-19 through August had no underlying conditions.

As of Oct. 4, the CDC had received reports of 5,217 cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, occurring several weeks after coronavirus infection, with 44% of cases occurring in children in this age group. About 60% to 70% of MIS-C patients are admitted to intensive care and 1% to 2% die.

According to the CDC, the cumulative COVID-19-associated hospitalization rate for kids ages 5 to 11 throughout the pandemic is 28.6 per 100,000, which is similar to their hospitalization rate from the 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 flu seasons.

There were 94 reported COVID-19-associated deaths among children in this age group as of Oct. 16, making COVID-19 the eighth-leading cause of death.

While it is most likely that a child who contracts the COVID-19 virus will not become seriously ill, this is still a disruption to families, as the child will have to stay home from school and isolate for 10 days.

Keith Grant, director of infection prevention for Hartford HealthCare, said the vaccine could be for the benefit of an immunocompromised classmate. He said an asymptomatic person is "the most viable vector. This is the person that has the highest likelihood of passing it on to multiple people, to include people that you can kill."

With the highly transmissible delta variant of the virus now dominant, vaccinated people are more likely to have a breakthrough infection and transmit the virus than they were with earlier strains, though the vaccine still reduces the risk of severe illness and death. The science is still evolving on the extent to which vaccination reduces transmission of the delta variant.

What are the potential side effects for kids?

Pfizer's emergency use authorization application included trial data from 3,100 vaccine recipients, including 1,444 followed for at least two months after the second dose, and 1,538 placebo recipients.

The vaccine was found to be 90.9% effective in preventing symptomatic, laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, based on infection in three kids who received the vaccine and 16 who received the placebo, none of whom required hospitalization.

Most vaccine recipients experienced a sore arm. Other side effects included fatigue, headache, muscle pain, fever and nausea, but symptoms generally resolved in one or two days, and they were less frequent in this age group than among people ages 16 to 25.

There was no statistically significant difference in frequency of serious adverse events between vaccine and placebo recipients. No cases of myocarditis, or heart inflammation, were reported, though the study wasn't to assess the risk of myocarditis.

Will a vaccine be mandated for kids?

DPH spokesperson Boyle said Friday in an email, "There are currently no plans to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for children." He added, "We would not consider mandating any vaccine for kids while it still has emergency use authorization only."

e.moser@theday.com