Should I Give My 3-Year-Old the COVID Vaccine?

Dear Emily,

I have a 3 year old and I’m trying to figure out whether he should get the COVID-19 vaccine. I am very pro-vaccine, but some of the heart issues in teenagers make me nervous. I feel like people in my social group judge me if I even bring up the possibility of waiting. What do you think? Is it safe?
—Concerned (fully vaccinated!) Parent

I advocate starting a decision process by “Framing the Question” but, actually, there is a step first. You must decide if this is the time for this decision. Sometimes people will write to me and say, “My baby is six months old and my husband and I cannot agree if we would allow him to play high school football, due to concussion concerns.” But, actually, you do not need to decide about that question when your baby is still working their way up from rice cereal to pureed peas. You can wait and fight about it later.

That is only somewhat less true here. There are no COVID-19 vaccines approved in the US or Europe for kids under 12. We may have them in the fall, but the FDA has been non-committal on timing. You couldn’t vaccinate your three year old now (outside a trial) even if you wanted to. And we’ll have a lot more information by the time you are making the decision. We’ll have trial data from little kids, evaluated by the FDA. And a lot more real-world experience with kids 12-15.

At this point, you have to wait. There are plenty of decisions, COVID and otherwise, you need to make now. Don’t get drawn into hypothetical arguments you cannot hope to settle!