Children ages 5-11 may be able to get a dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine within a few days, according to White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients, and the program to inoculate kids will be “fully up and running” by next week.
The Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer vaccine for emergency use in children on Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are expected to sign-off on the decision later Tuesday.
The dose for children is one-third the size of the dose for adults.
CNN reports:
The Biden administration has secured enough vaccine supply to vaccinate the 28 million children ages 5 to 11 who are eligible for vaccination and will help equip more than 25,000 pediatric and primary care offices, hundreds of community health centers and rural health clinics as well as tens of thousands of pharmacies to administer the shots, according to the White House.
“Parents will be able to schedule appointments at convenient sites they know and trust to get their kids vaccinated. And the number of sites will continue to increase throughout the month as more vaccine sites open their doors to administer vaccine,” Zients explained at a Monday press conference.
In an interview with USA Today, Lee Savio Beers, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, endorsed the vaccine for children, saying “COVID-19 can cause serious illness in children, and that risk far exceeds the risk of the vaccine. And, the more people who are vaccinated, the less likely the virus is to spread into potentially new variants. Lastly, kids being vaccinated will make it easier for them to stay in school and not worry about quarantine.”
Beers added that even kids who were previously infected with COVID-19 should get inoculated. “The immunity you get from natural infection is variable. For some, it’s strong and long-lasting. For others, it dissipates quickly. There’s no way to know what category you fall into,” she explained.
