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Newswise — LOS ANGELES (Dec. 4, 2023) — With the holiday season underway, and families and friends gathering to celebrate, a leading Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s pediatrician has one word of advice for parents: Vaccinate.
Shervin Rabizadeh, MD, chair of Pediatrics at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s, says vaccinating your child helps protect the whole family, including elderly grandparents.
“Vaccines are critical in preventing transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19, especially during upcoming holiday gatherings,” Rabizadeh said. “You want to prevent and stop passage of the virus between individuals, and kids are often the vectors. They are the petri dishes that pass things on, so this [vaccination] is a great means of prevention.”
At a recent Cedars-Sinai COVID Clinic, healthcare workers distributed free Pfizer 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccines to children 6 months to 4 years old and Pfizer updated COVID-19 vaccines to children 5 to 11 years old.
Alison Chen’s two children were among the more than 120 who joined the pop-up clinic.
“We’re traveling to see family for Christmas, and airplanes are a bit nerve-wracking,” Chen said. “We also want to make sure we’re as safe as possible before seeing our grandparents.”
Priya Soni, MD, Cedars-Sinai pediatric infectious disease specialist, said there are many important reasons children should be vaccinated against COVID-19.
“While many children have milder infections than adults, some children develop severe lung infections from COVID-19 that require hospitalization,” Soni said. “Children also can develop bacterial pneumonia after recovering from COVID-19. Another complication is multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children [MIS-C], which can require care in an intensive care unit [ICU].”
During the COVID Clinic, some young children cried as they received their vaccines, but the parents, including Arturo Garcia, were smiling. Garcia brought his 19-month-old daughter, Anna Sofia, to the clinic.
“It’s important to keep our children safe and healthy,” Garcia said. “It’s the best gift we can give our children.”
Read more on the Cedars-Sinai Blog: Here Are the Back-to-School Vaccinations Your Kids Need
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