Children's vaccine program will 'be fully up and running' next week, White House says
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A federal effort to vaccinate 28 million American children against COVID-19 will launch fully next week, the White House said Wednesday.
“We are prepared beginning the week of Nov. 8. [that] our program will be fully up and running, with about 20,000 trusted providers in convenient sites across the country offering vaccinations,” White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said in a press briefing, adding that “millions of doses” of the pediatric-sized vaccine were in transport across the country.
The White House announced a plan to vaccinate children aged 5 to 11 years. Source: Adobe Stock
Vaccination sites will include schools, community centers, youth sporting events and even zoos and museums, he said. Parents can schedule vaccine appointments for their children online at vaccines.gov beginning on Friday, once vaccines have arrived at the sites and the community clinics are ready, Zients added.
The FDA authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech pediatric COVID-19 vaccine last week for emergency use in children age 5 to 11 years, and the CDC recommended it on Tuesday, opening vaccination to 28 million children in the country.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBA, said during Wednesday’s briefing that the government would be holding town halls where parents can ask about the vaccine. It will also be educating teachers, religious and other community leaders on where people can register children to receive it. He cautioned about a forthcoming “wave of misinformation.”
“That's why I'm asking parents to please seek answers from credible sources, like their doctor, a local hospital, a local health department or the CDC,” Murthy said.
The regimen for children is two 10 µg shots given 21 days apart. According to Pfizer and BioNTech, the vaccine was 90.7% effective in a clinical trial at preventing laboratory-confirmed symptomatic COVID-19 occurring at least 7 days after a second dose (two-sided 95% CI, 67.7%-98.3%), with no reported cases of severe COVID-19, myocarditis, pericarditis or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.
CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, said Tuesday that more than 1.9 million children aged 5 to 11 years have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the U.S., and that pediatric hospital admissions due to COVID-19 are higher now than during any previous wave of the pandemic.
“While we celebrate this important milestone today, I want to recognize the over 700 children who have been tragically lost to this disease,” Walensky said. “I want us to remember that pediatric vaccination is just one important piece to this complex puzzle.”