The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was authorized for this age and Dr. Joshua Ishal joined millions of other parents in protecting their children.
Dr. Ishal, a dentist who lives in Great Neck, N.Y., never questioned whether he would get his children vaccinations, but he has been wavering over the timing of their second shots.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that the Pfizer vaccine be separated by three weeks. Data shows that a longer wait bolsters the immune response. The risk of myocarditis, a rare but serious side effect of the vaccine in adolescents and younger adults, may be reduced by the extra time.
Children should wait at least eight weeks between doses according to health authorities in Canada. Kids in Britain wait 12 weeks for the second shot.
The risks of catching and spreading Covid must be balanced against the potential benefits of waiting for the second dose. With the United States on the verge of another major wave of cases and the new Omicron variant spreading rapidly, delaying means leaving children vulnerable to infection and illness for longer.
The University of Michigan School of Public Health has an infectious disease epidemiologist who thinks that is a difficult call.
Is it more important for children to be protected sooner? Or a better protection later? Jerry tells a story about picking a cold medicine from a wall of options at the drugstore in an episode of "Seinfeld." Jerry said that this is quick acting, but long- lasting. When do I need to feel better?
A financial adviser in Oakland plans to push her son's second dose back to six or eight weeks. She was swayed by the studies showing that a longer interval between doses leads to a better immune response.
She said that she took it upon herself to follow doctors on social media. She feels that public health officials are taking too many precautions and are not adapting to changing data. She said that that doesn't work anymore.
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Dr. Joshua Ishal at home in Great Neck, N.Y., did not hesitate to get his two daughters vaccinations, but is less sure when the best time would be to get them their second shot.
Three weeks between doses is too short for an optimal immune response.
It makes more sense to wait, according to Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona. The perfect interval was three weeks between doses. He said that the decision was more about public health and reducing community transmission. The second dose for his children will be held off until eight weeks.
After the first dose, the immune system needs time to get used to it. Immune cells in the blood can start producing an immune response within a week. The process of generating high-quality antibodies takes more than three weeks, and those cells need to go through an intense training camp inside the lysosomes.
The B cells need to sweat a little bit, according to an immunologist at the University of Montreal.
Canada and Britain decided to wait on the second shot for adults when vaccine doses were scarce last winter and spring. The immune response of 26 people who received their second shots three months or more after their first was examined by Dr. Finzi and his colleagues. They looked at the responses of people who received their shots in four weeks. The two groups produced roughly the same amount of antibodies, but the group with a longer interval between doses produced stronger antibodies with a greater capacity to stay there.
The dose interval for all vaccines was increased to 12 weeks in Britain. Hundreds of health workers were studied by researchers at the University of Oxford.
The study found that people who waited 10 weeks between their first and second doses had higher levels of antibodies than people who waited three or four weeks. B cells continue to develop over that long interval.
The second dose should be given three to four weeks after the first one, according to a study led by the University of Oxford. T cells help ramp up the body's immune response and were affected by the longer dose interval. T cells of study participants produced more of a chemical signal that helps long-term immune memory after the long interval.
Dr. Dunachie said they were surprised.
She said that a more robust immune response measured in the laboratory wouldn't mean better protection in the real world.
The results are mixed. A study that has not yet been peer-reviewed suggests that a longer dose interval improves the effectiveness of the vaccine. People who had a longer stretch between doses had a lower risk of becoming infectious than people who had less time.
Studies from Britain have not been as clear-cut. The delay of the second dose gave one a small benefit. Two other studies did not find any effect.
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There are buttons for vaccine in a clinic in Washington, D.C.
The impact of intervals on the risk of myocarditis is not clear. In a study that has not yet been peer-reviewed, researchers found 207 of them occurred after the second dose. People who separated their vaccines by a month or less had higher rates than people who waited six weeks or more.
There is no guarantee that the vaccine will cause excess myocarditis in 5- to 11-year-olds. More than seven million doses of the vaccine have been given to this age group in the U.S. and only 14 cases of myocarditis have been reported to the government.
The risk of myocarditis is much higher among teenage boys and young men, with about 11 cases for every 100,000 males between the ages of 16 and 29 receiving a second dose.
Lisa is a software trainer in Virginia. Her son was 12 when he received his first dose. She wants to wait six weeks to get his second shot. She and her husband work from home, and the rest of the family is fully vaccine-free. Ms. Rollins said that his risk is low. It makes sense for us to wait a little bit longer.
Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, points out that we don't yet know how much benefit children will get from waiting a few weeks. His children received their second dose four weeks after their first.
Longer duration would be better if there was no Pandemic. We are at a point in time where Omicron is going to sweep our nation and it will probably sweep across the world. There has never been a better time to get a vaccine.
It is an argument that Dr. Ishal finds persuasive. There are more cases in New York City. He took his daughters for their first shots at the city-run site in Queens. He may keep that time slot because of what is happening with Omicron.
He said they would take all the protection they could get. I think I made a decision.
