Should Adolescents Get the COVID-19 Vaccine? Yes.

As adolescents return to school and all the activities they love, it’s important to keep them safe from COVID-19 and variants of concern. Getting people age 12 and older vaccinated is one of the best ways to protect them from COVID-19. This week, Dr. Jim McDonald and Dr. Philip Chan are talking about COVID-19 vaccination among adolescents. Our guest expert is Dr. Penelope Dennehy, director of the Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program at Hasbro Children’s Hospital and a professor of pediatrics at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.  Adolescents 12 or older are eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and more than 48,000 adolescents age 12-18 in Rhode Island have already gotten fully vaccinated. Both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have started clinical trials for their COVID-19 vaccines in younger children, too. What does the trial and approval process look like? When might children younger than age 12 be eligible for vaccine? Download this week’s episode to find out.  Learn more about how to get vaccinated in Rhode Island at C19vaccineRI.org.