The Food and Drug Administration's authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11 on Friday makes 28 million unvaccinated children in the United States suddenly eligible for the shot and offers the country an opportunity to make big inroads in its efforts to achieve broad immunity against the coronavirus.
But in a nation that has already struggled with COVID vaccine hesitancy, getting shots into those little arms may present health authorities with the toughest vaccination challenge yet.
Even many parents who are themselves vaccinated and approved the shot for their teenagers are churning over whether to give consent for their younger children, questioning if the risk of the unknowns of a new vaccine is worth it when most coronavirus cases in youngsters are mild.
In announcing its authorization of a lower-dose shot made by Pfizer and BioNTech for the age group, the FDA said clinical trial data showed the shot was safe and prompted strong immune responses in children. The most common side effects were fatigue, fever and headache.
Infectious disease experts say that with approaching holiday travel and family gatherings, widespread vaccination of younger children could help keep classes in person, reduce the likelihood of quarantines and lessen the risk of transmission to older, vulnerable adults — as well as protect the children from what has become the eighth-biggest killer in their age group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To date, nearly 2 million children ages 5-11 have been infected with the virus, and 8,300 have been hospitalized. One-third of those hospitalized were admitted to intensive care units, and at least 170 have died.
But a report this month from researchers at Northeastern, Harvard, Rutgers and Northwestern universities found that parental concerns around the COVID vaccination had increased "significantly" from June through September. Chief among them, researchers said, were the newness of the vaccine, whether it has been sufficiently tested, efficacy, side effects and long-term health consequences.
According to a survey released Thursday by Kaiser Family Foundation, scarcely 1 in 3 parents will permit their children in this newly eligible age group to be vaccinated immediately. Two-thirds were either reluctant or adamantly opposed. An Axios-Ipsos poll found that 42% of parents of these children said they were unlikely to have their children vaccinated.

Erin Gauch, of Middletown, Rhode Island, got herself and her two older children, ages 14 and 12, vaccinated this summer. But she is worried about the potential side effects of the shots for her 9-year-old son. One of those side effects is myocarditis, a weakening of the heart muscle, that has been reported in a very small number of teenage boys and young men after getting a COVID shot.