Parents of Young Children in Southern California Worry As COVID-19 Protocols Disappear – San Bernardino Sun
As a mother of four who got coronavirus vaccines shortly after being eligible, Krissy Brownell scheduled appointments for her 6- and 8-year-old children the week they could get the plug.
Now to graft the other two.
With an immunocompromised 2- and 4-year-old in his home in Los Alamitos, Brownell has obsessedly waiting for drug manufacturers to present and federal health authorities to approve a COVID-19 vaccine for the approximately 18 million children under 5 in the OS
When that will happen, though, is anyone’s guess.
Brownell, 39, is among dozens of parents with young children too young to be vaccinated, who in addition to waiting for the green light to inoculate their fat, now have to adapt to the latest easing of security measures introduced early in the pandemic to dam up. the spread of COVID-19 and subsequent, more contagious-than-the-last varieties.
“I do not think it is fair that security measures be relaxed until everyone has the opportunity to be vaccinated,” said Brownell, a teacher in Huntington Beach City School District in Orange County. “We shut everything down for the adults, and then apparently no one cares about the little ones … It’s more than frustrating, because it’s like the rest of the world, if you want to be vaccinated, you can.
“With the exception of our child.”
Given how seriously the country has taken the threat of COVID-19 over the past two years, not to mention the damage to hundreds of thousands of families who have lost loved ones to the disease, Gabby Mason is still wrapping his head around the universal solution. of security protocols as the pandemic enters a third year.
A 29-year-old single working mother whose 2-year-old attends a child development center at San Bernardino Valley College eight hours a day, the Yucaipa resident has kept her little one at home for most of her young life and away from crowded public spaces.
Vaccinating his daughter whenever possible is a priority, Mason said, for the “protective barrier” the vaccine provides against serious illness and hospitalization.
Until then, she’s waiting.
As of Wednesday, March 16, more than 400 children are up to 4 years old are dead from COVID-19, according to data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drew from 780,705 deaths. This is a higher death rate than for children between 5 and 11, 12 and 15 and 16 and 17.
In addition, CDC data for large parts of the last few months show that children up to 4 have been hospitalized at a higher rate than those between 5 and 11, an age group eligible for vaccination late last year.
“It’s the fear of the unknown,” said Mason, an endoscopic technician at Loma Linda University Surgical Hospital in San Bernardino County. “You never know what (the disease) will do to children, so you want to keep them as safe as you can.”
A pediatric COVID-19 vaccine has been promised for several months, but after data gleaned from a two-shot study for 2- to 4-year-olds yielded mixed results in December, Pfizer added a third jab to the series.
Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and expert advisors had to review the drug manufacturer’s results to decide whether to approve the two-shot regimen for children when Pfizer evaluated the third dose. But as omicron flew through the country at the start of the new year, the data changed, prompting FDA officials to postpone this meeting to give Pfizer officials more time to evaluate data.
Three-dose protection information is expected in early April.
Nevertheless, as recent cases and hospitalizations dropped from the staggering heights reached in the winter, state-wide masking requirements relaxed for a large proportion of the population in February, regardless of vaccination status.
Yet, masking rules remained in schools.
From Monday, March 14, however, face covering was not required of children’s institutions and kindergartens, schools and school districts. In addition, there are plans to ease mask mandates on planes, buses and other mass transport in the coming weeks.
Brownell, who teaches in high school, will keep his mask on indoors and get his kids to do the same.
“I hope people who celebrate sending their kids to school are maskless, as I know millions of Californian parents are, they think of siblings of children in their classes or children of their teachers who are too young to be vaccinated, “Brownell said.
“When they celebrate sending their children to school, I will terribly send mine.”
Megan Goulding recently went maskless in her office for the first time in years, and with countless security protocols in place to offer as much protection as possible, “it was so nice to see whole people’s smiling faces,” she said.
“I really enjoyed it on one level,” the 36-year-old Long Beach mom added.
But with her 18-month-old daughter still unprotected against COVID-19, “I will continue to have to consider the possibilities of where I bring her.”
“A lot of people over the pandemic have had this decision-making matrix of how I weigh this against a potential reward,” said Goulding, head of strategy and external relations at the USC Price Center for Social Innovation. “With people being vaccinated, you do not have to do that much, but for little ones who are not, you still have to make a lot of decisions about what you are willing to risk and not risk.”
Goulding admittedly takes some risk by sending her daughter into day care on a part-time basis, but said it was crucial to her development that she was with others her age.
And the safety precautions that were in place there added a level of comfort.
“I do not have a particular fear of my daughter being caught (COVID-19),” Goulding said. “It’s just that it’s new and scary, and it’s unknown. I know that children who get it generally have very mild symptoms, yet no one wants their children to get it. No one wants to sign up for it.
“It’s hard to separate the fear and anxiety from the last few years,” Goulding added. “For those of us who became parents in the pandemic, it’s hard not to be intimidated with a newborn and then a baby.
“It’s hard to be super sensible and logical sometimes.”
As frustration rises as she waits to inoculate her two youngest, Brownell said her family has been bored of anything but at home.
At least twice a month, Brownell holds a theme weekend extravaganza. Her family has traveled to Hawaii and has thrashed the entire film series “Harry Potter” and “Star Wars” as she delves into the respective universes.
Sidewalk chalk art sessions. Outside playing time. Walks to the beach.
“I have used my teacher creativity to entertain them,” Brownell said. “Until (my children) can be vaccinated, our world looks the same. People want to make it seem like we live scared in a basement. We are not afraid of anything.
“We are aware that we do not want children to get a virus that it is completely possible not to get.”
With two years to develop and cultivate new daily routines and recreational habits, Goulding is firstly accustomed to this new normal, though others are returning to pre-pandemic lifestyles.
“I’m not sure we’re missing out on that much more by being careful about where we go indoors now that the numbers are changing,” she said. “It does not feel like the big sacrifice for me because there are many other things we can do, other places we can go.
“When my daughter also gets older,” she added, “we spend time in a cool museum, indoors, unmasked. But it’s nothing for her right now. Many of those things are just naturally down the road anyway, and hopefully are we at another time to that time. “