Moderna COVID-19 vaccine approval by FDA on 1/31/22

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The FDA has fully approved the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine on January 31, 2022. It meets the rigorous standards for safety, efficacy, and manufacturing quality to ensure that it is safe for patients to receive. It is now referred to as “Spikevax”. It is currently approved for patients age 18 and older, and is given as a primary dose, a second dose at 4 weeks, and booster dose 5 months after the second dose. You can access more information here. Although we do not have a supply of the Spikevax in our office, you can use the vaccine finder website to find a location nearby that offers it. Please let us know if you have any questions!

Free at Home COVID-19 Tests

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As you may have heard, the government is sending out 4 free rapid antigen at home COVID-19 tests per household. Although they are not as accurate as a molecular test if they result negative, they are just as accurate if they result positive. If you have symptoms and have a negative at home test, please call us to discuss or obtain a molecular test nearby and stay in isolation. The link to order the tests can be found here.

COVID-19 Update

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COVID UPDATES:

Roslindale Pediatrics is experiencing an unprecedented amount of phone calls, requests for visits and COVID testing demands during the current COVID surge. Many of our staff are currently ill, and we ask for your patience as we work together with limited resources to provide the best care for your children. We understand that the current surge has created significant illness as well as painful social and emotional situations in many homes. We continue to strive to provide the best care possible.

Response Time

You may experience longer than usual wait times when you call or send MyChart messages, particularly outside of business hours. Your messages and calls are being triaged and returned in the order of medical urgency, not in the order of receipt. This is medically appropriate and necessary given the large volume of calls and messages we receive on a daily basis. Please reserve after hours phone calls for urgent medical concerns only. Calls for lab results, non-urgent refills, appointment scheduling requests, or referrals should be made during business hours only. Many calls outside of business hours for these types of requests are contributing to longer than usual wait times.

High Emotions

RPA is sympathetic to our parents' frustrations and concerns regarding their children and the current pandemic. Unfortunately, at times some parents of our patients have directed that frustration towards our staff. We value each and every one of our staff members who have been working tirelessly over the past 2 years during the COVID pandemic, and we can not tolerate abusive behavior towards them. Our staff members have been instructed to discontinue these types of conversations and refer them to their administrator for further attention if necessary. We appreciate your patience with our staff during this difficult time.

Testing Constraints

Please Note: We currently do not have any rapid tests. This is related to extreme demand on a national level. Last year, our practice purchased many testing machines and supplies, which were invaluable in getting real time results on COVID questions. However, we are currently unable to use these machines due to lack of testing supplies. We are working with our suppliers to regain this resource and anticipate we will be able to do so relatively soon. The only option for COVID testing through our office is a PCR, which can take several days to result. We encourage you to utilize other testing resources, including state and city run testing sites, if you are able. Please visit our website for more information.

COVID Test Results Communication

We understand that you are anxious to receive your COVID results and would appreciate your utilization of MyChart for all results. COVID results are released to MyChart as soon as they are available. In fact, you will receive the results simultaneously when our office receives them. Calling our office will not expedite your access to the results.

Isolation and Quarantine Information

We know that isolation and quarantine guideline changes have been confusing. Our website is updated to reflect the most current information. Please access our website if you need any clarification. https://roslindalepediatrics.org/covid19-info/#quarantine

Thank you for your continued patience during this difficult time.

COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Approved for age 12 and older

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The FDA and CDC have both approved a COVID-19 booster for children age 12-15, so now everyone age 12 and over is eligible to receive a booster vaccine 5 months after their second vaccine if they had Pfizer, and 6 months after if they had Moderna (only 18+).

At Roslindale Pediatrics, we highly recommend receiving the booster to make sure our patients are fully protected. We are unable to set up anymore COVID-19 Vaccine clinics but we may be able to offer the vaccine at your child’s well visit and this website makes it easy to schedule a vaccine elsewhere.

We also understand it is very difficult to obtain a COVID-19 test right now, so please access this website to look for locations near you. Unfortunately we do not have the capacity to test patients for return to school, travel, or after they have been diagnosed with COVID-19. As a reminder, a positive at home antigen test is just as accurate as a PCR and should not be confirmed with a PCR test. If your child has symptoms and has a negative at home test, this is not as accurate and we should see them in the office.

New Isolation and Quarantine Guidelines

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As of 12/27/21, the CDC has updated their guidelines on how long to isolate when someone has COVID-19 and how long to quarantine if someone is exposed. Please review their new guidelines here. If someone has a positive at home test, this is considered a true positive and a PCR or molecular test is not indicated.

If someone tests positive for COVID-19 without symptoms, they must isolate for 5 days and can come out of isolation on day 6, but must wear a tight fitting mask for the additional 5 days.

If someone tests positive for COVID-19 with symptoms, they must isolate for 5 days and if on day 6 they have no symptoms and are fever free for 24 hours, they can come out of isolation and wear a tight fitting mask for the additional 5 days. If they are unable to wear a mask, they must isolate for a full 10 days.

If someone who is not fully vaccinated (over 6 months since last vaccine and no booster) and they are exposed, they must quarantine for 5 days, and wear a mask for an additional 5 days, and obtain a test on day 5 or later. If they are unable to wear a mask, they must quarantine for 10 days. If they have symptoms, they should call us to discuss testing options.

If someone who is fully vaccinated is exposed, they do not need to quarantine, but should wear a mask around others for 10 days, and obtain a test on day 5 or later.

Please also refer to our COVID-19 page for additional information about the virus and vaccinations. And please call us with any other questions. Keep in mind we have a large call volume right now so it might take a while to hear back from us, we apologize for the inconvenience.

Office Safety Update

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As our COVID-19 numbers continue to surge in Massachusetts, we are asking that only 1 parent accompany each child at a visit. This is to limit the amount of people in our office at one time to decrease the spread of COVID-19. We encourage parents to call in or facetime in for the visit.

We will also continue to ask you to wait in your car until a room is ready for you or your child.

We know this can be difficult to continue with these safety measures for almost 2 years now and we appreciate your cooperation! We can get through this together!

COVID-19 Vaccines Age 5-11

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We currently do not have any upcoming vaccine clinics for dose #1.

We will be holding our dose # 2 clinics over the next few weeks (these are for our patients who have received their first dose) Remember it needs to be 21 days between doses.

We continue to encourage all of our eligible patients to get vaccinated. Vaxfinder.mass.gov has a list of available vaccine clinics.

We will post more information when/ if we schedule more clinics.

Occasionally we have same day availability of vaccine. If you live locally and would like to be placed on a wait list, please call the office and we can add you to the list.