Vaccinating children 5 to 11 will bring us closer to ending pandemic, Sask. microbiologist says

Saskatoon mother Pamela Beaudin is ready to vaccinate her children. She says she has always trusted science — it's how she got her twin boys in the first place. 

"Our boys are a product of IVF, so I trusted science to give me children, and I'm going to trust science to keep them safe," Beaudin said.

Liam and Wyatt will turn five in December and then be eligible to get the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, expected to be authorized for use soon by Health Canada for kids five to 11.

Saskatchewan has already ordered 112,000 doses of the vaccine for kids in that age group, set to arrive in early- to mid-November.

Beaudin said she's "counting down the days" until her children get the jab.

"To me, it just makes sense to get them vaccinated and I will be so excited when we take them to go get their vaccination. It'll be a great day," she said.

She said her children have a good understanding of the vaccine and COVID-19 — which they refer to as the "bug."

"As much as they know they're going to get a needle, they want to protect those around them, they want to protect themselves and just help us all get back to that normalcy," Beaudin said.

Children in the United States aged five to 11 have already started receiving their shots. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the vaccine for children and last week the U.S. Centers for Disease Control unanimously approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for use in that age group. 

University of Saskatchewan clinical microbiologist Dr. Joseph Blondeau said vaccinating kids will bring us closer to ending the pandemic.

"The better the uptake, then the better the overall level of immunity and then we hopefully will start to see this thing go away," Blondeau said. 

Nearly a third of Saskatchewan's COVID-19 cases are in people 11 and under. Last week, the Public Health Agency of Canada said children under 12 account for 20 per cent of all infections, which is the highest of all age groups.

Over the course of the pandemic, health officials have said it will take 85 to 90 per cent of the population being vaccinated to reach herd immunity.

Blondeau said he doesn't know the magic vaccination percentage that Saskatchewan needs to hit, but that vaccinating as many people as we can — including our youth — is "very helpful."