In Westlake and Lake Travis area, many parents of young kids jump on vaccine appointments

For Maricela Graciano-Ramos, who spent the early days of the pandemic working at a hospital in San Antonio, getting her children vaccinated was an emotional experience. She said she cried when her 12-year-old daughter got her first shot months ago, and she signed up her 10-year-old son for his vaccine as soon as the shot was approved for children 5 to 11.

“We can finally breathe,” Graciano-Ramos said.

Graciano-Ramos started working from home when her family moved to Westlake a year ago, but before that she was often quarantined away from her children because of possible exposure at work. She said it is an enormous relief to know that her kids have an extra layer of protection now.

Graciano-Ramos is far from the only parent feeling reassured now that younger children are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. Since an advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted on Nov. 2 to recommend Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine for children 5 to 11, many parents in Westlake and Lake Travis have rushed to get their kids appointments in the hopes of having full immunity kick in before the holidays in December.

Esha Clearfield, who has a 9 year old in the Eanes school district, said the vaccine offers some measure of relief from the stress that has followed so many of the decisions parents have made over the past year and a half when it comes to keeping their kids safe.

“I feel 100% confident in my decision and frankly very relieved that by the end of November both of my kids will have been vaccinated,” she said. “It’s been pretty terrible for parents, to be honest, in terms of trying to figure out how to keep our kids safe.”

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Many organizations both locally and nationally are recommending children 5 and older get vaccinated, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and Texas Children’s Pediatrics. In clinical trials, vaccination was found to be nearly 91% effective in preventing COVID-19 among children ages 5 to 11 and the most common side effect was a sore arm, according to CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensk.

Not every family is vaccinating their young children, often because of concerns related to side effects and others because of vaccine hesitancy, but many in the area have scrambled to find the earliest possible appointment for their children, citing extra protection from COVID at school and over the holidays as motivating factors.

About a million children ages 5 to 11 received their first dose of the vaccine nationwide in the first week that the shot was approved. Although young children are at low risk of severe disease from COVID-19, the risk is not zero, and vaccinated kids also impedes transmission to the more vulnerable.

Elizabeth McCoy, whose son is in fifth grade, said that as soon as he reaches full immunity, she plans to re-enroll him at Lake Pointe Elementary School. He has been attending school online school so far this year because McCoy said they did think school was safe enough without a mask mandate.

“He’s been so excited to get vaccinated,” she said. “He knows that he probably won’t get that sick, but this whole time he’s been so afraid that he would get me sick or his dad sick or an elderly neighbor sick. ... We go for flu shots every year, so he understands that that’s just what we do to keep people safe.”

She said she looks forward to a holiday season in which everyone is vaccinated so her kids can see their grandparents for the first time since the pandemic started and meet a new cousin who was born during COVID.

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Angela Shori, who has two kids at Cedar Creek Elementary in Westlake, said she had a lot of conversations with her children about the importance of vaccination in ending the pandemic.

“It was never really a question for us as to whether or not they would get the vaccine, and we’ve been talking with them for a long time about how it’s for their own personal protection and also what we do as a community to help end this,” she said. “They had a really good understanding of why we were doing this and what their role in that will be and how hopefully it will change things.”

Christina Shoemate, who has a 5-year-old at West Cypress Hills Elementary in Lake Travis, said her son was both excited and nervous to get the shot. Shoemate also has a daughter who is under 5 and is not eligible, so she was relieved to have one of her kids vaccinated, since her elderly parents live with them and are at higher risk.

“We kind of talked about it being a superpower. He’s going to be able to fight the virus if he gets it,” she said. “I’ve known a few people who have gotten very sick from COVID and I just don’t want that to happen to my family.”

Graciano-Ramos said she hopes that talking to other parents about her children’s experience with the vaccine will help ease worries about the shot.

“As a pediatric nurse, I understand what it’s like to have parents who are fearful. They truly want what's best for their kids,” she said. “It often takes education and a little bit of vulnerability to say, ‘Look my kid went through this, too, and they are OK.’”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: In Westlake and Lake Travis area, many parents of young kids jump on vaccine appointments