Hello and welcome back to the Curious Kid podcast. On October 29th, the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine was approved for children between the ages of 5 and 11 in the United States. That's 28 million more people now eligible to get the vaccine.

Those 28 million people include me and my brother Noah, who just turned 5 on November 11th.

That's right, and both of you got your first dose of the vaccine the next day on November 12th.

In just a couple of minutes, I'm going to share what it was like to get the COVID vaccine.

But before you do that, we want to help answer some amazing questions sent in by our listeners

with the help of some very special guests.

We also have an awesome treat to share with you.

One of our listeners was a part of the clinical trials that studied the COVID vaccine and kids.

And he was amazing enough to let us share his experience with all of you.

There is so much to get to. So let's get started.

Ethan from New York City wants to know how vaccines protect us.

To help us learn how vaccines protect us, we are so lucky to have Veronica, an infectious disease

pharmacist who works at a hospital in Queens, New York. After finishing up pharmacy school,

she completed two years of training to specialize

in infectious diseases. She helps treat patients with different types of infections caused by bacteria,

fungi, and viruses like COVID-19. Here's what she has to say. Vaccines protect us by teaching

our bodies what shouldn't be there.

The COVID-19 vaccine works like other vaccines that you may have received before when you were a baby or the annual flu shot.

Germs like coronavirus, which is a virus that causes COVID-19, invade and multiply inside the body.

The vaccine helps stop this by teaching your immune system to recognize COVID as something

that shouldn't be there and make antibodies to fight it.

Antibodies are made by protector cells in our immune system called white blood cells.

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