We were grateful for the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Bradley Berg of Baylor Scott & White Health to get YOUR questions answered about COVID vaccines. We know this information will be helpful to Austin families as they make their decisions about vaccinating their children against COVID.
Although Dr. Berg is fully vested in vaccinations and western medicine, he also has a great interest in alternative care, lifestyles, and diets and is open to discussing all forms of care. Dr. Berg has an MD as well as a PhD from the University of Rochester and enjoys working with parents to ensure their children develop and grow to the best of their potential.
Dr. Berg has been recognized as a Top Doc 2020 by Austin Monthly Magazine. Winners are nominated by their peers as among the best in their region/nation in their medical specialty.
Although Dr. Berg is fully vested in vaccinations and western medicine, he also has a great interest in alternative care, lifestyles, and diets and is open to discussing all forms of care. Dr. Berg has an MD as well as a PhD from the University of Rochester and enjoys working with parents to ensure their children develop and grow to the best of their potential.
Dr. Berg has been recognized as a Top Doc 2020 by Austin Monthly Magazine. Winners are nominated by their peers as among the best in their region/nation in their medical specialty.
We know that many parents still have questions about the COVID vaccines for children. Specifically, we have polled our audience over the last few weeks and found that many of the questions actually overlap among families. Dr. Berg with Baylor Scott & White Health, took the time to answer some of our readers’ most frequently asked questions.
Fertility. I’ve heard a number of people say that they think the vaccine will affect girls’ fertility as a reason to not get their daughters vaccinated. Is there any truth to this question or kind of rumor that’s out there.
Dr. Bradley Berg – I’ve heard the same thing. The good news is that we have some really great data. There’s several different monitoring sites that watch the COVID vaccines to make sure that we know about any potential side effects or long term health effects. And what we do know from the monitoring is that there’s no evidence of having any fertility issues at all, either in the COVID vaccines or in other vaccines. We also know that the ingredients in the COVID vaccine are broken down in the body within a few days. So really, there’s nothing long lasting in the COVID vaccine that would affect fertility in the long run.
Booster Shot. Does my child need a booster shot and are kids eligible?
Dr. Bradley Berg – Yeah, you know, there’s really there’s no way to predict how COVID is going to affect any given child. What we do know is that vaccines and boosters are very good in reducing your child’s chance of getting COVID and also becoming seriously ill and becoming hospitalized. From the very beginning COVID vaccines were rolled out in a metered way. So they went to adults first then they went to 12 to 17 year olds, and now five to 11 year olds. This was to make sure that the vaccine was safe in every age group before they rolled it out to younger children. Currently, children 12 to 17 can get the booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine. And hopefully in the near future, the five- to 11-year-olds will be able to as well. Research into COVID vaccines is always ongoing. And the recommendations continue to be revised.
Timing. Knowing that there’s generally an uptick in cases at the start of the school year, should parents consider timing vaccines or the boosters to be done in late summer to ensure that they have the best protection or that the protection is not waning at the start of the school year?
Dr. Bradley Berg – It’s really difficult to predict when COVID is going to increase. Coronavirus historically has been a wintertime virus but we saw last summer a big surge in July and August. So, I think that with the new variant, we could see another spike in the summer. So, it’s important to get your children vaccinated as soon as they’re eligible and the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics both recommend that. If you’ve got any other questions with regards to the timing of the vaccine, make sure you ask your pediatrician as every child is different.
Side Effects. What are the short and the long-term possible effects of the COVID vaccine? And how can you be absolutely certain that these vaccines are safe for children when we have such limited data on long term effects?
Dr. Bradley Berg – A lot of people do worry about the long-term effects. Symptoms from COVID infection we know can last years now it looks like. We do know that the vaccine side effects are normally seen within about six weeks. And there’s no evidence after two years that COVID vaccines or other child vaccines have any long-lasting health effects. Again, the COVID vaccines are being carefully monitored for both short- and long-term effects. Because of the monitoring, we know that COVID is a great, much greater threat to children than the vaccine or any potential side effects of the vaccine. And so again, we recommend that children get the vaccine because the benefits of the vaccine have far outweighed the risks of actually getting COVID itself.
Effectiveness. Why should I get my kids vaccinated if people who are vaccinated can still get COVID? I hear this one all the time.
Dr. Bradley Berg – You know, no vaccine is a perfect vaccine. But vaccines really do reduce your chance of getting infected with COVID. But the biggest health benefit of getting a vaccine is really, really to prevent those serious illnesses. So it’s those illnesses that cause people to become hospitalized, or have other long term illnesses. And in a new study, the vaccines were shown to be 74% effective in keeping children five to 11 years old out of the hospital during the last Omicron surge. So we know that the vaccines are safe, and we know that they’re effective in keeping children from getting serious illness.
How effective is the vaccine in children under 12 against the new variants of COVID that you’ve been talking about?
Dr. Bradley Berg – Using Omicron as an example, we know that the vaccines provide some protection against actually catching COVID. But the biggest benefit is that serious illness and hospitalization benefit. And the recent study I just mentioned, showed that in children under 12, the vaccine actually keeps kids out of the hospital about 74% of the time.
Safety & Effectiveness. Do you feel getting COVID give kids natural immunity that works just as well as a vaccine?
Dr. Bradley Berg – This is something we always get in pediatrics. You know, having COVID does give your child some immunity. But it doesn’t mean your child can’t get COVID again. We also can’t predict how severe a case of COVID will be in a child. We know that COVID tends to be much worse in unvaccinated children, and that the vaccines definitely decrease the risk of getting severely ill. And we know that the side effects are less. So the best way really to protect your child from getting COVID is not to roll the dice and hope that they get a mild case, but really to get them vaccinated and prevent them from getting seriously ill.
Timing. Can kids get another vaccine, like the flu shot, at the same time that they get the COVID vaccine?
Dr. Bradley Berg – This is another question I get a lot as a pediatrician. At the beginning, we kept them separate because we didn’t know if there were any interactions. But again, they’ve been monitored for the last two years. And we now know that there is no problem getting either the routine vaccines or the flu vaccines along with your COVID vaccine. And most doctors are giving both kids and adults any needed vaccines all at the same time.
Benefits. If you have any children of your own, what vaccination decision did you make and why?
Dr. Bradley Berg – Since the beginning of the pandemic, 10 million kids have been vaccinated against COVID. I’ve got a 13-year-old so he was eligible last year for the vaccine. And I got him vaccinated as soon as he turned 12. He’s had both doses and his booster shot at this point and he’s had no side effects at all. So you know, I really do recommend that parents get kids their COVID vaccine, that they get their boosters if they’re eligible, just to prevent them from getting seriously ill.
Dosage. Is there any difference in the ingredients of dosing of the COVID vaccines for younger children, older children or the adults?
Dr. Bradley Berg – Yeah, unlike a lot of medicines that are based on children’s weights, the COVID vaccine is based on their ages. The ingredients that are exactly the same, so there’s no difference in the vaccine between the different groups, it’s just that the dose is a smaller dose
We know a lot of families that still have questions and hopefully this will provide some insight to being able to answer so many of the family’s questions regarding COVID vaccines. If you have questions about COVID vaccines, talk to your pediatrician.
Watch Our Full Interview
