Photo: courtesy Kathleen McAllister
New motherhood is challenging, even before Dad leaves to fight an unknown virus. Parenting a newborn during a pandemic lockdown meant no mommy-and-me yoga or playgroups — all the socialization that help keep new moms sane.“The pandemic was really hard for parents,” McAllister recalls.
When the family moved to Atlanta in the summer of 2021, her husband Stephen Russell overheard a parent at the playground talking about the Pfizer trial for children’s vaccines. The couple signed their now 2-year-old daughter, Mac Russell, up to participate.
“Mac is in this vaccine trial to show to the world that the vaccine is safe and effective for children,” she says. “I’m so proud of her.”
McAllistershares with PEOPLE in her own words why getting her daughter vaccinatedwas important to her.
My daughter, Mac, was born January 16, 2020.
Being a new mom in early 2020 was isolating, even more so than I expected — I was lonely, and very full of anxiety, especially with my husband being in medicine and being in the ER, in the ICU, when the virus was brand-new.
Remember, early in the pandemic, when people were speculating: Was it on your clothes? How long did it live on surfaces? He was around the virus all day, and so we decided out of an abundance of caution he would move out while he was on those shifts. We tried to see each other once a week, outside with surgical, medical-grade masks on. But it was not easy. It was so early in the pandemic. My in-laws were close, but they both work full-time. And so it was just us, just me and Mac.
courtesy Kathleen McAllister
Then we moved to Atlanta in June of 2021, so my husband could do his fellowship in pulmonary critical care at Emory.
The week we moved to Atlanta, my husband heard another parent at the playground talking about their kid being in the Pfizer study. We don’t even know those people. He asked the dad, “Oh, are you talking about the COVID vaccine? Can I have the name and number of the research coordinator?” When he told me about it, I said, ‘Let’s see if we can get her in.’
If there was a chance to have her vaccinated sooner than the rest of her population, we were jumping at that chance. We thought it could be a great part of her story, born into the pandemic and helping other kids be able to get the vaccine. She was 18 months old at the time she enrolled in the study in July 2021.
Honestly, Mac is a healthy kid; the data around kids with COVID is showing that kids who were not immunocompromised, had very low severity of the disease. But I feel like we have a responsibility to the community at her school to protect her. And, if she could get vaccinated sooner — all the better for both her, and other kids. There was a 66% chance she’d be vaccinated as part of the study.
She had two shots. There were a series of blood draws and appointments. And every time she had cold symptoms, we’re supposed to bring her to the research site and they do a PCR test and then another test to send to Pfizer.
There’s a lot of a stringent requirements to be in the study, which I think is great. It just enhances the rigor, hopefully the data is stronger because of that. But there are a lot of hoops. We had to enter in a diary after she received the injections to track her symptoms. And it didn’t change our behavior or risk level; we were still cautious. And luckily she never got COVID.
We just found out at her “unblinding” appointment the first week of February that she actually received the placebo – and not the real vaccine. But because she participated in the study, she received her first shot the first week of February. It went great. She had no symptoms. She was a champion.
When she got her vaccine, I cried. I cried when I received my first shot, too. It’s been a long journey a long, two-plus years. I was so proud of her.
I feel like it’s our duty to protect the community and help these kids get a vaccine. That’s our big reason for doing this, is being able to help the general public.
I think Mac will have an interesting story to tell, being born into the pandemic, living away from her dad when she was first born, her dad being a doctor taking on the front lines, and then having the story to tell about going through this whole vaccine trial process so that other kids could get vaccinated. That’s special to me, and I hope she thinks so too.
source: people.com
