Hillary Moonay, a family lawyer in Pennsylvania, says she has seen a huge uptick in calls about the coronavirus vaccines. Her firm has argued several cases for parents. The first issue she clarifies is who has legal custody for medical decisions. “Unlike physical custody, where a lot of times you see one party having a much greater share of the physical custodial time, legal custody is generally 50-50,” Moonay says.

Shared legal custody means regardless of whom the child lives with, parents must agree on issues like education, religious upbringing and medical care. If the divorce is not finalized, Moonay discourages any parent from making a unilateral decision about coronavirus vaccination. If the parents have never married, they also generally have shared legal custody. However, if married parents do not have a pending divorce or custodial agreement, one of them can take a child to get vaccinated without express permission from the other parent.

Caroline, a physician in California who is using her middle name to protect her son and because her employer will not allow her to speak to the media, took her ex-husband to court so she could vaccinate their 12-year-old. Two months of online messaging had gone nowhere. “It became very clear that he wanted to wait to some future undetermined time,” she says.

Like 96 percent of doctors in the United States, Caroline is vaccinated against the coronavirus. “I wanted to be vaccinated as soon as possible,” she recalls. “Why wouldn’t we all get vaccinated? We were beating down the door to get our first shots.”