Vaccinations for children slow and pediatricians also face other medical challenges.

Amid Push to Vaccinate Children, Other Challenges Deluge Pediatricians CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Near the end of one of the first days that 5- to 11-year-olds could get a coronavirus shot last month, Dr. Anne Steptoe, a pediatrician, sat hunched in her cramped office between packages of diapers, onesies and children’s books, cataloging the week’s patients on her laptop. One teenage girl had been sleepless and suicidal; another was anemic. Several young boys had gained weight during the pandemic. A 10-year-old had been plagued by asthma attacks and was using her inhalers in YahooNews

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The rollout of the shot for young children brought relief for many families eager to shore up protection amid a wave of new virus cases. But much of the upfront demand has already been met; many parents who were eager to get their children vaccinated have done so. The success of the campaign, made even more urgent with the arrival of the omicron variant, depends on the next phase: reaching the hesitant and undecided, including those who have not given thought or gained access to the shot.

Steptoe’s patients at Charlotte Community Health Clinic, many of whom have chronic medical conditions, crowded housing arrangements and vulnerable family members, are among the children most in need of the shot. Yet most parents who have brought their children to the clinic over the past month have declined it. They are wary of the vaccine, focused on getting treatment for mental and physical problems that had gone unchecked for much of the pandemic.

More broadly, Steptoe said, her patients and their families were taking a cautious, “stepwise” approach, seeing how the shot was deployed among friends and neighbors, and asking for follow-up conversations with the clinic. That was also the case in the adolescent vaccination campaign, she said, leading to steadier uptake months into the shot’s deployment in that age group.

For now, the numbers are meager. A pediatric vaccine kickoff event at the clinic drew just six children despite being advertised locally. Only 43 of the 900 doses the clinic received had been used as of Tuesday, and just 18% of 5- to 11-year-olds in Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte, had received an initial dose as of Nov. 29, said Dr. Raynard Washington, the county’s deputy public health director. ...