Despite being newly eligible for vaccination against COVID-19, 5- to 11-year-olds who have gotten their shots early won’t be quite fully inoculated by the end of November, presenting a challenge for families who want to safely celebrate holidays together after almost two years of restrictions on indoor gatherings.
This has prompted some parents to continue holding smaller celebrations than in pre-pandemic years, a decision one epidemiologist encouraged as the coronavirus continues to persist in pockets of Maine that have low vaccination rates.
Brian Kresge, the president of Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor, has two children. While his high schooler got vaccinated in May, his younger child, who is 6, just became eligible for vaccination last week. She will receive her first dose on Wednesday at a school clinic, and receive a second dose on Dec. 1.
That means she won’t be fully inoculated until well after Thanksgiving, which is on Nov. 25. She will also receive her second dose during the middle of Hanukkah, which ends on Dec. 6, so she won’t be fully vaccinated for that holiday, either. Public health experts say that people aren’t fully protected until two weeks after their second dose.
Kresge plans to host a party with participants from his congregation and two other Bangor-area synagogues for Hanukkah, which starts the night of Nov. 28. Adult attendees must be vaccinated, he said.
Kids, however, won’t need to be fully vaccinated for the party, a decision Kresge made out of respect for some parents who are hesitant to immediately vaccinate their children because of concerns about how new the vaccine is.
However, Congregation Beth Israel will still require everyone to wear masks for the foreseeable future, “until the pandemic becomes an epidemic,” Kresge said.
Sarah Cottrell, a parent of three who lives in Winterport, will also keep her holiday gatherings small.
Her sons Finn, 11, and Maxwell, 8, received their first doses on Tuesday, but her daughter Eleanor, who is 4, isn’t yet eligible for vaccination, she said.
Finn also has hemophilia, and the family has maintained strict health protocols and homeschooled their children during the pandemic to minimize risks to his health.
Cottrell and her husband normally have a “huge Thanksgiving of 15 to 20 people,” but they plan to keep this year’s gathering to just the family of five and a couple of friends who are fully vaccinated.
Fellow Winterport resident Jaime Cole’s sons — Jackson, 8, and Ryker, 10 — got their first doses on Tuesday.
Her family plans to host a small Thanksgiving with her in-laws, who live above her, and her sons, because Jackson and Ryker won’t get their second vaccine doses until a week later, she said.
As of Tuesday, people under 20 accounted for the largest number of COVID-19 cases in the state since the March 2020 start of the pandemic, according to data from the Maine Center for Disease Control.
While children are less likely to become seriously ill from COVID-19, they can still carry the disease and pass it on to adults and get them sick, said Dr. Robert Horsburgh, a Boston University epidemiologist.
“The reason we want to vaccinate the kids is to interrupt the chain of transmission, which goes from adult to kid to adult, and that’s been well demonstrated,” he said.
Even though vaccinations provide a layer of protection, there is still a risk of contracting the virus even after one is inoculated, Horsburgh said.
He advises families to continue masking, get their children vaccinated “right away” and to keep holiday gatherings small until the virus stops circulating in the community.
Finn and Maxwell will return to in-person schooling next month, but the family plans to continue limiting the number of visitors they allow into their home, Cottrell said.
“We’re going to just keep to ourselves until our youngest is able to be fully vaccinated,” she said.
Cole said she looked forward to this Thanksgiving with a feeling of hope, as it means her kids will be close to finally being able to see their friends in person.
“It feels like there’s an end in sight,” Cole said.
