From the start, 14-year-old Aiden Ekanayake and his mom Emily didn’t question whether Aiden would get a COVID-19 vaccine. “We take COVID extremely seriously, so our plan has always been to vaccinate,” Emily says. Aiden was “pretty excited for it” because it meant doing more activities and worrying less about getting sick. And though Emily had heard about possible side effects, she knew they were usually mild.

Aiden got his first dose of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine on May 12, 2021, the day it came available for people his age. Four weeks later he got his second dose. The very next day Aiden began feeling mild chest pain. He dismissed it, assuming it was related to his asthma, but the pain