by LAU­RAN NEER­GAARD, As­so­ci­at­ed Press

(AP) — Vac­ci­na­tions fi­nal­ly are avail­able to U.S. chil­dren as young as 5, to the re­lief of some par­ents even as oth­ers have ques­tions or fears.

Late Tues­day, the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion gave the fi­nal OK for young­sters age 5 to 11 to get kid-size dos­es of the vac­cine made by Pfiz­er and its part­ner BioN­Tech. Pae­di­a­tri­cians and oth­er doc­tors’ groups praised the move and are gear­ing up to help fam­i­lies de­cide whether to vac­ci­nate their chil­dren.

The shots could be avail­able as soon as Wednes­day and will be of­fered at pae­di­a­tri­cians of­fices, clin­ics and phar­ma­cies. Like COVID-19 vac­cines for adults, they are free.

Here are some things to know:

SHOULD EL­E­MEN­TARY SCHOOL-AGED CHIL­DREN GET VAC­CI­NAT­ED?

Yes, ac­cord­ing to U.S. health au­thor­i­ties and lead­ing doc­tors’ groups. Even though the virus tends to be more se­vere in adults than chil­dren, COVID-19 is caus­ing plen­ty of pre­ventable suf­fer­ing among young­sters. About 1.9 mil­lion kids ages 5 to 11 have been di­ag­nosed with COVID-19. Some 8,300 have been hos­pi­tal­ized, about a third need­ed in­ten­sive care, and at least 94 deaths have been ver­i­fied.

That’s not count­ing the risk of a se­ri­ous com­pli­ca­tion called mul­ti­sys­tem in­flam­ma­to­ry syn­drome that can hit kids sev­er­al weeks af­ter they re­cov­ered from even a mild in­fec­tion.

Vac­ci­na­tion al­so promis­es to help kids more safe­ly re­sume school and so­cial ac­tiv­i­ties.

ARE KID DOS­ES THE SAME SIZE AS ADULT ONES?

No. Chil­dren ages 5 to 11 will re­ceive a third of the dose giv­en to teens and adults. That’s 10 mi­cro­grams per shot for young­sters, com­pared to 30 mi­cro­grams per shot for every­one 12 and old­er. Like every­body else, the younger kids will get two shots, three weeks apart.

HOW WELL DO THE SHOTS WORK?

In a study, Pfiz­er’s pae­di­atric vac­cine proved near­ly 91% ef­fec­tive at pre­vent­ing symp­to­matic in­fec­tion. Vac­ci­nat­ed young­sters de­vel­oped lev­els of virus-fight­ing an­ti­bod­ies as strong as teens and young adults who’d re­ceived the full-strength dose.

ARE THERE SIDE EF­FECTS?

In the tri­al, the 5- to 11-year-olds had some an­noy­ing post-shot re­ac­tions, in­clud­ing sore arms and fa­tigue, sim­i­lar to teens and young adults but were less like­ly to have fevers. Al­to­geth­er, the study in­cludes 4,600 young­sters, 3,100 of them giv­en the vac­cine and the rest dum­my shots. The FDA found no safe­ty con­cerns.

WHAT ABOUT RARE PROB­LEMS?

Tens of mil­lions of the larg­er dos­es have been giv­en safe­ly to Amer­i­cans 12 and old­er. One very rare se­ri­ous side ef­fect has come to light: heart in­flam­ma­tion.

These rare re­ac­tions have oc­curred most­ly in young men or teens boys, usu­al­ly af­ter the sec­ond dose, and they tend to re­cov­er quick­ly. To put the risk in con­text, doc­tors say COVID-19 in­fec­tion can cause more se­ri­ous heart in­flam­ma­tion. One the­o­ry is that testos­terone and pu­ber­ty play a role, which is part­ly why ex­perts ex­pect any risk to younger kids would be even low­er.

WHAT IF MY CHILD IS ABOUT TO TURN 12?

CDC said chil­dren should get the dose that’s right for their age on the day of vac­ci­na­tion. So if a child gets the 10-mi­cro­gram dose for the first shot and then turns 12, the sec­ond shot should be the 30-mi­cro­gram dose.

SHOULD I JUST WAIT UNITL THEIR 12TH BIRTH­DAY SO BOTH SHOTS ARE THE BIG­GER DOSE?

Pae­di­a­tri­cians say not to post­pone vac­ci­na­tion be­cause the kid-size dose is ef­fec­tive in that age group.

IS THE CDC’S MOVE A MAN­DATE?

No. The CDC has not man­dat­ed vac­ci­na­tions for young­sters but rec­om­mend­ed them.

AREN’T ON­LY SOME KIDS AT HIGH RISK OF SE­RI­OUS COVID-19?

Near­ly 70% of 5- to 11-year-olds hos­pi­tal­ized for COVID-19 have had oth­er med­ical prob­lems, in­clud­ing obe­si­ty and asth­ma. But some­times the oth­er­wise healthy get se­ri­ous­ly ill, too. And giv­en the pro­found so­cial, men­tal health and ed­u­ca­tion­al im­pact the pan­dem­ic has had on young­sters, health au­thor­i­ties made clear that all chil­dren should be vac­ci­nat­ed. There al­so are eq­ui­ty con­cerns, as more than two-thirds of young­sters who’ve been hos­pi­tal­ized are Black or His­pan­ic.

WHAT IF MY CHILD AL­READY HAD COVID-19?

They still should be vac­ci­nat­ed once they’ve re­cov­ered, ac­cord­ing to the CDC. It’s clear that pri­or in­fec­tion does pro­vide some pro­tec­tion against an­oth­er bout, but that im­mu­ni­ty can vary de­pend­ing on how se­ri­ous­ly ill some­one was, and how long ago. Stud­ies of adults have found that vac­ci­na­tion af­ter in­fec­tion can dra­mat­i­cal­ly boost pro­tec­tion.

IS PFIZ­ER’S VAC­CINE THE ON­LY CHOICE FOR CHIL­DREN?

In the U.S., for now, it is. Mod­er­na’s sim­i­lar vac­cine is used by teens in some oth­er coun­tries and is be­ing test­ed in younger chil­dren but isn’t yet avail­able for Amer­i­cans un­der age 18. A few oth­er coun­tries have used oth­er kinds of COVID-19 vac­cines in young chil­dren, in­clud­ing Chi­na, which just be­gan vac­ci­na­tions for 3-year-olds.

WHAT ABOUT VAC­CI­NA­TIONS FOR U.S. CHIL­DREN YOUNGER THAN 5?

Stay tuned: Pfiz­er and Mod­er­na are test­ing low dos­es in ba­bies and pre-school­ers.