Dr. Theresa Whited, National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners, COVID Vaccinations, March 6, 2026

I'm taking time to visit with Dr. Theresa Whited. She is a pediatric nurse expert with the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. And first Dr. Whited, thanks for taking time to visit with us. Thank you so much for having me.

We, one of the things that we want to talk about, and once again, COVID-19 still people just go, ah, when they hear COVID-19.

But one of the big issues that really we're seeing and starting to discover more is that when people are coming down with COVID-19, they may not know it right away. They think, oh, it's just a cold. They'll get over it and stuff like that.

There are a lot of other issues with COVID-19 that people might not be paying attention to. Yes, absolutely. For some people, it will just be a cold with common symptoms like fever, cough, congestion, sore throat fatigue, headache, some body aches, and those kinds of things.

But for some people, even those who are healthy, but especially those with high risk conditions, they can have really serious complications still, like severe respiratory distress, myocarditis, what condition called MIS-C, which affects multiple organs within the body, and long COVID.

And again, those kids that are at higher risk for these complications end up in the hospital or sometimes even in our ICUs having significant issues.

Especially, again, when you talk about children in particular, what are some of the things that, some of the medical conditions they might have, I know for older adults, they always tell us older adults, hey, take the precaution, you know, because you have a lot of other issues that might be impacting this.

But for children, what are some of the things you look at there, asthma, things like that?

Yes, there are asthma, one of them moderate to severe, chronic lung disease, obesity, diabetes, some neurologic disorders, congenital heart disease, immunocompromised states, and those children who have sometimes have medical complexity. So they have more than one thing going on.

So they have multiple issues, or maybe they're having need for some technology to help them along, like maybe some feeding issues or some breathing issues or something like that. Those kids are especially at increased risk.

In fact, it's estimated that about 59% of children who were hospitalized for COVID-19 in the last year had one or more underlying medical condition that put them in the hospital. That's a pretty high number. That's, yeah.

And then once you're hospitalized, then the treatment for that, again, takes, that takes time. It does. Absolutely, yeah. So depending on what's going on, it can take definite significant amount of time.

As an example, you know, some kids will end up in the ICU on a ventilator, sometimes ECMO and other really significant things. And so those recoveries take a really long time.

So there's also a thing called long COVID that children can get, especially those who have more serious courses of COVID.

There are increased risks for having disease process that lasts longer than three months with things like psychological disorders, breathing, cardiac disorders, and even like kind of a chronic fatigue type situation.

I know there's a lot of people, okay, they follow social media, you know, oh, is it really that bad? And the bottom line is, yeah, we don't know because it's still relatively a new impact on us on just what these long-term issues could be, and especially for children.

Yeah, absolutely. So I, like many others say, why take the crapshoot of knowing whether or not you're going to be the person who has a very mild illness versus those who have more significant illnesses when it's absolutely preventable.

We do recommend that we start vaccinating for COVID-19 at six months of age or older for all those who are eligible for the vaccine.

And for infants younger than six months, we really encourage family members and close household contacts, including their mom, getting vaccinated to provide that net of protection around them so that we just prevent this disease as much as we can.

What do they say when you, well, the vaccines, I'm afraid of vaccines we've heard from higher-ups and others that have, but if they go to their family physician, mostly they're going to hear the same story that these vaccines are good. They've been successful. Yes, absolutely.

The data that goes into developing these vaccines and ongoing monitoring is excellent.

There's lots of evidence that shows that these vaccines are very effective at not only preventing the disease, but if you happen to get the disease, preventing those big, significant, complex side effects.

The most side effects from the vaccine are usually very mild and short-lived. So things like soreness, fatigue, a low-grade fever, and again, they're very short-lived, just a couple days where not getting the vaccine ends up with possibility of having significant complications.

And it's estimated again that about 96.2 percent of children hospitalized for COVID-19 were not vaccinated. So we know that the vaccine works, and if we can get it in them, it'll help prevent some of those more serious complications.

So the one things that we've seen locally, of course, just coming up, well, we're still right into what I call the respiratory season. Besides COVID-19, we're dealing with flu and a couple of varieties of that.

We have the other respiratory diseases among children in particular, but older people get it too. And, you know, this is the big thing is if you start feeling ill, go get checked and find out what you're going to be dealing with. Absolutely, yes.

Going to your nurse practitioner or your pediatrician or, like you said, your family practice providers, if you're feeling ill, going in, getting tested and figuring out what the best treatment for you is, is essential for sure.

And if you didn't get your shots earlier, I don't know. Is it too late? It's never too late, is it? No, it's never too late. We obviously recommend that you try to get it around the same time that we get our flu shots during the viral respiratory season.

So from October to March is our highest risk time. But there's no right or wrong time to get your vaccine. If you didn't get it this year, just go get it now. It'll recover you for the next year. And then the next year you can get it around that same timeframe.

I even tell parents that if they're there for their back to school, kind of physical and all those kinds of things, let's go ahead and get our COVID vaccine so that we know that they're protected during those viral seasons. The big thing is it helps you build that immunity.

Again, you may get it, but it may not be as severe. Absolutely, yes. We know that it builds immunity for it as well as keeps you protected. And again, COVID-19 is not one of those viruses that, or even a lot of our respiratory illnesses that just goes away.

It's just we see a higher incident of it during the viral season. Those viruses still show up even in the summer or other timeframe. So protecting is the key. All right. Obviously people like to, they like to go search for information. Where are some places?

What do you recommend they go check out? So I'd recommend going to napnap.org. It's the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners website. They provide lots of information about COVID-19, the vaccines, and even other vaccine preventable diseases there at that website.

So again, it's napnap.org. Okay. Easy enough to do, Dr. Theresa Whited, our guest on our program today. Thanks so much for taking time to visit with us and let people know. You know what?

When in doubt, get that shot, get that vaccine, get that vaccination and keep yourself healthy. And again, as always, I say, cover your cough, cough into your sleeve. If you're ill, don't go out and wash your hands.

Those are absolutely, thank you so much for having me and I agree. That's wonderful advice.