Pharmaceutical companies have been racing to develop and distribute an effective COVID-19 vaccine, but there has been very little attention to pediatric patients.

For months the American Academy of Pediatrics has been pushing for children to be included in the trials, but for parents – especially those with children at a higher risk – it becomes a bigger question…is it worth it?

After all, would you let your child participate?

“As of right now, only one phase three trial has been conducted by Pfizer, and they included 300 children ages 12-17,” BayCare Pediatric Service Line Medical Director Dr. Christina Canody said.

While elderly people and those with certain preexisting medical conditions are at the highest risk for complications for COVID-19, doctors say children still spread the illness.

But a large portion of age ranges are missing from trials.

“Unless we have the safety and the efficacy data in children, we’re not going to get any closer to even manufacturing a vaccine for children. But I think to protect those who are most vulnerable is a really important point to get out,” she said.

“It is sad,” Tamekia Waldron said as she and her daughter Ashley scrolled through her phone, looking at pictures of get-togethers before the pandemic.

Ashley is 11 years old and has Sickle Cell disease. That puts her in the vulnerable category for COVID-19.

She’s already been fighting her whole life.

“That scares me a lot if she gets COVID because she doesn’t have a spleen, and she wouldn’t be able to fight,” Waldron explained.

They’ve taken every precaution to protect Ashley, but ask her if she’d put her daughter in a COVID vaccine trial...

“No. I wouldn’t do it. I can’t. I wouldn’t put her at risk with that vaccine because I don’t know, if she does get the vaccine – I don’t know what the symptoms would be. I want to know if she has a fever, is it from the vaccine or from the sickle cell? So I don’t want to put her through that,” she said.

It’s a valid point and possibly an insight into the mind of a lot of parents.

“I’m not worrying about it if there isn’t research. I’m going to continue to do what I’m doing to keep her safe,” she said.

Keeping kids safe is all anyone wants to do, but how do you plan for the future when the cases keep going up?

“Florida has one of the top five highest numbers of pediatric cases in the country,” Dr. Canody said.

Statewide there have been more than 113,000 children who’ve tested positive for COVID-19.

You can see a county by county breakdown here

“As long as the illness is being spread, it puts everybody in danger of getting the illness,” Dr. Canody said.

Dr. Canody says some of the children who have had the most severe infections are older adolescents and fall in the 12 to 17 age range where there has been a phase three trial.

However, that data is expected to come out in the second quarter of 2021, which is still 6 months away.