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This is a moment many parents have been anxiously waiting for for months: Among the last Americans to qualify, children younger than 5 are now eligible for the coronavirus vaccine.

Parents of young children who have not had access to vaccines since the outbreak began have been faced with nearly impossible choices. Many children are withheld from schools, family gatherings, and other activities and are deprived of their normal childhood experiences. Now everything can change.

On Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines for children under 6 months old. The decision means these young children will receive the vaccines for the first time, perhaps on Tuesday.

Sunny Baker, 35, a mother of two in Oxford, Miss., said she vaccinated her 5-year-old eldest daughter, Hattie Ruth, at the first opportunity, and is looking forward to the vaccination of her 2-year-old daughter, Alma Pearl. qualify

“Yes yes yes! We want to be first in line,” he said.

But Ms. Baker may be in the minority: A recent Kaiser Health survey found that only one in five parents would get their young child vaccinated right away. Many are planning to delay it for now.

As the pandemic extends into its third year and Americans weigh the risks they want to experience, the CDC’s decision puts parents of young children in a difficult position.

Although vaccines continue to protect against serious illness and death, their new variants have lost some of their effectiveness against infection. And large numbers of Americans were infected during the Omicron wave, contributing to a false perception among many that the war was over.

The changed advice also contributed to the lack of enthusiasm. Daryl Richardson, 37, of Baltimore, said he does not plan to vaccinate his three children, in part because of continued changes in the number of recommended doses.

“First it was a shot, then it was a booster and it was another booster,” he said.

After living with their children for so long with the dangers of the pandemic, parents are now faced with new questions, some so complex that they have baffled even regulators and experts. Which vaccine is better? How well and how long will they work? And why does it bother the majority of young children already exposed to the virus?

Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are considered safe for young children, and both give blood levels of protective antibodies similar to those seen in young adults. But neither can provide the miraculous protection that adult vaccines provide in the early days of the pandemic.

Moderna’s vaccine appears to produce a strong immune response in young children, and protection is complete within 42 days of the first dose. But the vaccine causes a fever in one in five children, and fewer providers are likely to offer it as an option over the Pfizer vaccine.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is more familiar and produces less fever, but children will need to receive three doses of the vaccine to avoid the virus. Although it takes 90 days to reach the highest level of protection, the effect may last longer compared to the Moderna regimen.

“These two presentations are going to be incredibly difficult to implement,” said Katelyn Jetelina, public health expert and author of the widely read newsletter.Your Local Epidemiologist”

“There will have to be a lot of proactive communication about the difference between the two and the effects of putting one ahead of the other,” he said.

Experts said in interviews that a head-to-head comparison of the two vaccines might give parents some answers, but this is neither possible nor recommended. There is so much variation in the way vaccines are formulated and evaluated.

D., who leads vaccine trials for both Moderna and Pfizer at Kaiser Permanente in Southern California. “It would be really impossible to say that one is better than the other,” said William Towner.

The choice may depend on whether parents are willing to take three doses instead of two, and which vaccine their providers have, he said.

Many providers are not accustomed to Moderna as they have so far only relied on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Approximately 350 million doses of this vaccine applied to the Americans Overall, compared to 223 million doses of Moderna vaccine and approximately 19 million of Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

States for minors so far ordered 2.5 million doses of Pfizer vaccine and 1.3 million Moderna vaccines. Considering the 18 million children in this age group, these figures are lower than expected.

Uptake has been slow even for older children. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was approved for children ages 5 to 11 in November, but less than 30 percent we got two shots in that age group.

Overall, vaccines have proven to be very safe, but many parents are hesitant for a variety of reasons. Some are cautious because they think vaccines are relatively new or that the risk of Covid-19 is insignificant for their children.

Some parents may be disinterested because their children are uninterested. between 75 percent It is thought to be already infected. But CDC scientists said Saturday that the vaccine provides stronger and more consistent protection even if a child is already infected with the virus.

Still, other parents left the pandemic.

In Middletown, Ohio, some parents were more concerned about staying cool in the summer heatwave than the risks of coronavirus. Tori Johnson, 25, is unvaccinated and said she has no intention of vaccinating her two daughters, 7-year-old Liliana and 9-month-old Rosalina.

“Life was already back to normal,” he said.

Simone Williams, 32, said she was hesitant to vaccinate her 1-year-old twins, Caidon and Arissa, and 4-year-old Bryan. “I’d buy it for them if needed, but otherwise I’m in no rush,” Ms Williams said.

Some pediatricians were getting ready to explain the benefits of getting vaccinated to parents. Even routine vaccinations are a concern in many parts of the country.

D., a pediatrician and medical director for quality and safety at Mount Sinai. Pediatricians “struggled with this for many years over the standard dosing of flu shots and measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox,” Lindsey Douglas said. Kravis Children’s Hospital in Manhattan.

Dr. “There has definitely been a lot more information in the last two and a half years,” Douglas added. “But there is a lot more misinformation out there, too.”

In some ways, the odds against vaccine use in the youngest children have increased.

The Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines both offered excellent efficacy estimates in adults far beyond expectations, raising hopes for a virus-free future.

But while vaccines were slowly being tested in young children, the virus quickly changed, with each new form more difficult and challenging than the last.

The newest versions of the Omicron variant have evolved to partially circumvent not only the two-year-old vaccines, but even the immunity produced by an infection with the circulating form of Omicron a few months ago.

The original estimates of efficacy in adults were at the 95 percent level. That figure has now led to 51 percent for two doses of Moderna vaccine in children 6 to 23 months old and just 37 percent for children 2 to 5 years old.

As low as it may seem, the two-dose Pfizer vaccine didn’t even meet the Food and Drug Administration’s bar for immune response, justifying the agency’s decision in February to delay evaluating the vaccine until the company has tested three doses.

Dr. “As a mother, I think it’s unacceptable that it takes this long to get our little ones vaccinated,” Jetelina said. But “as an epidemiologist, I also know the value of rigorously conducting clinical trials and finding the right dose.”

Based on the data, the FDA this week approved two doses of Moderna vaccine and three doses of Pfizer-BioNTech as a “primary series” for young children.

If authorities determine that even the youngest children need booster vaccines against future variants, children will need to receive a third dose of Moderna and a quarter of Pfizer.

In news releases and data reported to federal regulators, Pfizer estimated an 80 percent effectiveness for three doses of its vaccine. But the CDC’s advisers said at a meeting Friday that this calculation was based on only three children in the vaccine group and seven children who received a placebo, making it an unreliable measure.

An infectious diseases specialist at Drexel University College of Medicine, Dr. “We have to assume we don’t have activity data,” Sarah Long said. However, Dr. Long said he was “confident enough” with other data to support the vaccine’s effect.

Parents of the youngest children may be more willing to opt for a Covid vaccine if it can be offered alongside other routine vaccines. Dr. Towner said he would be better off not having either of the vaccines, but he predicted that more parents might opt ​​for Moderna.

“I’ll be honest, it can be a little difficult for some parents to do three doses instead of two,” she added. “If they have a choice, and both are available, that may lead some parents to Moderna.”

Some parents will not need convincing. Erin Schmidt, 37, of Alexandria, Va., said the news was “life-changing” because her family lived in “a kind of alternate isolated reality.” After he vaccinates his 2-year-old daughter, Sophia, he plans to open a bottle of champagne, take Sophia to the museum, and “blow his mind about the world.”

Brendan Kennealy, 38, of Richfield, Minn., said that after their 4-year-old Hazel and 1-year-old daughters, Ivy, are vaccinated, he and his wife, 35, Jocelyn, will take them to the lake town. Duluth, where they plan to try new restaurants and attend an open-air concert by a local folk group called Trampled by Turtles.

The family had to avoid spending time indoors with her mother, who has lupus and is vulnerable to severe Covid. Her children missed the state fair, dropped out of swimming lessons, and dropped out of gymnastics.

“I’ve been very, very happy a few times in the past and then they pulled the rug back,” Mr. Kennealy said of the FDA stopping progress in vaccines for children.

“These tremors of hope have unnecessarily vanquished,” he added. “I try to keep this at bay until we get to Walgreens or wherever we take them to get their poke and Band-Aids.”

Adam Bednar Contributing reports from Baltimore, Christina Capecchi Richfield, Minn., Ellen B. Meacham Oxford, Miss. and Kevin Williams From Middletown, Ohio.