By early November, Pfizer’s COVID-19 shot could be in the arms of millions of children ages 5 to 11, pending authorization by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The process of getting shots into arms probably won’t look like it did for adults. In other words, officials said, there probably won’t be mass vaccination sites.
The Associated Press reported that more than 25,000 pediatricians and primary care providers have already signed on to administer COVID-19 vaccine shots to kids. That is in addition to the tens of thousands of pharmacies that are already administering shots to adults. Hundreds of school- and community-based clinics will also be funded and supported by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help speed putting shots into arms.
Erin Carlson, the director of graduate public health programs at the University of Texas at Arlington, emphasized the need to deliver information and the vaccines in ways that parents trust. She described local pharmacies and pediatricians’ offices as “places we know, we’ve been [to], we trust, we feel comfortable going, and we feel comfortable asking questions.”
The CDC discussed the option of vaccination clinics at schools, but stopped short of endorsing that as a primary way to get kids vaccinated, the AP reported. The guidance also warns health care providers to only use doses that have been prepared especially for kids, and not try to fraction adult doses.
It’s not clear yet how school clinics may play a role in this vaccine rollout, but public health experts say that these efforts will be important.
“We just simply cannot overlook the role that school nurses play in access to health care,” Carlson said. “When you have somewhere between 1 in 3 and 1 in 5 families at any given point in Texas who have no access to health care because they don’t have access to health insurance, the school nurse is the key health care provider [for those kids].”
Cecilia Tomori, the director of global public health and community health at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, said, “Many people don’t actually see health care providers regularly. So the community-based approach and the school-based approach [are] a much more effective way and much more equitable way of getting vaccination to people.”
Tomori added that the expanded eligibility for children could help with mobilizing vaccinations in the adolescent age group. “This would be a great opportunity to do outreach to families and communities,” she said.
There should be more than enough shots. The U.S. has bought 65 million doses of the Pfizer pediatric shot — expected to be one third the dosage for adults and adolescents — according to officials. They will ship in smaller packages of about 100 doses each, so that more providers can deliver them, and they can be stored for up to 10 weeks at standard refrigeration temperatures, the Associated Press reported.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
