Healthy, Wealthy
& Wise
Pediatricians Push for Routine Vaccinations
shots in June 2021, compared
to about 60,000 in June 2019,
IN APRIL 2020, routine according to the report.

However, some
area vaccinations among children
dropped to below 40,000, with Jewish pediatricians still have
total routine vaccinations in concerns. Th ey believe there’s
the city dropping more than work to do to get those numbers
60% at the pandemic’s incep- back to what they were before
tion, according to a September the pandemic, and questions
report from the Philadelphia remain about how growing
Department of Public Health. vaccine skepticism due to
“It’s really impossible to COVID vaccine misinforma-
overstate how important tion has impacted attitudes
getting and maintaining, toward routine vaccines.

Dr. Paul Offi t, director
staying on schedule for routine
vaccines is for children,” PDPH of the Children’s Hospital
A 2021 COVID vaccine clinic at
Communications Director of Philadelphia’s Vaccine Waterview
Recreation Center held
Education Center, estimates by the Philadelphia Department of
James Garrow said.

Despite COVID’s toll on that about 15% of parents he Public Health
Courtesy of Philadelphia Department
pediatric routine vaccination encounters have some form of
of Public Health
rates, the tides are starting hesitancy about getting their
to turn: Immunizations children vaccinated. He’s able
uptake in children over 5.

have risen back to near their to sway about 85% of them.

However, Offi t is worried Since
Pfizer-BioNTech’s pre-COVID rates, with about
50,000 children getting their about the low COVID vaccine use for children 5-11 was
approved by the Food and
Drug Administration on Nov.

3, only 30% of parents nation-
wide have taken their children
to be vaccinated, Offi t said.

A large part of the under-
vaccination of children is
due to growing partisanship
around vaccination, he said.

“Twenty years ago, the
anti-vaccine movement did not
have a political cast to it,” Offi t
said. David J Novick, CFP ® , ChFC ® , CLU ® , MBA
Parents also report not
Director of Financial Planning
wanting to have their child
235 North Sycamore Street
receive the COVID vaccine
Newtown, PA 18940
due to the speed at which the
vaccine was produced, which
made it seem untrustworthy,
Phone: (215) 860-2225 ext.29
Center City Pediatrics Dr.

Mobile: (610) 608-0069
Craig Barkan said.

Fax: (215) 860-0255
“I generally try to explain to
them that there’s an incredible
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20 JANUARY 27, 2022
JEWISH EXPONENT
Dr. Paul Offi t
Courtesy of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
amount of research that has
demonstrated safety,” he said.

“Th e process that went into
making this vaccine has been
as thorough as any other
vaccine. It’s just been done in a
more timely way.”
Reasons for not giving
children routine vaccinations
diff er from skepticism toward
the COVID vaccine.

“Th ere are some parents who
argue the now-completely and
utterly defunct fear of autism,”
Barkan said. “And people
sometimes are just afraid that
there is responsibility for a
child, and they’re afraid that
they’re going to make a bad
decision.” Offi t added that a lack of
education about vaccines also
adds to skepticism.

“Th ere’s always a hesitancy
to inject the child with a
biological agent because
everyone considers a child
to be more vulnerable, even
though they’re not,” Offi t said.

“Or they view not-vaccinating
as the safer, less risky thing to
do, which is not true.”
For parents with infl exible,
negative beliefs about vaccines,
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Healthy, Wealthy & Wise
Dr. Craig Barkan
Courtesy of Center City Pediatrics
though they make up only
a small fragment of Offi t’s
patients, convincing them
of the benefi ts of vaccines is
challenging. “When people make a
decision, they generally stick
by that decision, no matter how
much evidence there is that
they’ve made the wrong one,”
Offi t said.

However, vaccine attitudes
likely aren’t the driving
force behind routine vaccine
under-uptake among Offi t’s
and Barkan’s patients. In the
early days of the pandemic,
parents were especially wary of
taking their kids to the doctor,
and children potentially
missed important opportu-
nities to receive their routine
shots. “People have avoided going
to the doctor out of fear of
being in a place where they
might get infected or get sick,”
Barkan said.

As more people have
received COVID vaccinations,
numbers of visits to the doctor
have increased and returned
to pre-pandemic numbers
at Center City Pediatrics,
Barkan said.

If anything, parents of his
patients have become even
more willing to vaccinate their
kids: “For the most part, there
has been a strong eagerness for
the vaccine.”
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Th ough hesitant parents
remain few and far between,
professionals have warned
against the harm lack of vacci-
nation can cause. According
to Offi t, 75-100 children die
each year from chickenpox, a
vaccine-preventable disease.

Though COVID hospi-
talization rates for children
remain low, there remains a
risk that is preventable with
vaccines. “What people don’t realize
is that still you have thousands
of children between fi ve and
11 years of age who’ve been
hospitalized; you have about
100 children of that age group
who have died of this virus,”
Offi t said.

Increased hospitalizations
have the potential to overwhelm
the system, forcing patients
to delay elective surgeries,
according to Garrow. Th ough
elective surgeries are oft en
thought to be mostly cosmetic,
they also include surgeries for
cancer patients, which may be
put on hold indefi nitely.

“Th ere are people out there
right now who do need surgery,
lifesaving surgery, but can’t get
it because hospitals have been
so overwhelmed by people
who haven’t been vaccinated,”
Garrow said. ●
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