There's no specific recommendation for how long a child should wait after infection before starting vaccination, but CDC officials said that because infection provides some protection, a child could safely wait three months after infection before getting vaccinated and that the delay might improve the vaccine's effectiveness.
Both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are likely to require three doses to provide adequate protection against omicron variants.
As with adults, it is likely children will need additional shots to remain protected against severe COVID-19 – but it's not clear how many or how often boosters will be needed.
Children, like adults, can suffer symptoms for months after a COVID-19 infection, though the syndrome is less common among children.
Vaccination doesn't prevent "long COVID," but it does seem to substantially decrease the risk of lingering symptoms.
Children that young haven't been given vaccines, because they get protection when their parent is vaccinated during pregnancy.
Before a vaccine was introduced for chickenpox in 1993 and pneumonia in 1998, each disease led to about 40 hospitalizations per 100,000 children from birth through age 4. In 2020, hospitalization rates for COVID-19 were about 30 per 100,000 young children, and last year they were 89 per 100,000.
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