On Monday, White House Officials said millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses for children are on their way to doctors’ offices across the nation, according to NBC News.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Pfizer-BioNTech low-dose Covid vaccine for emergency use in children aged between 5 and 11 Friday.
This move allowed the federal government to start rolling out doses to pediatricians’ offices, rural health clinics, children’s hospitals, pharmacies, and other sites where children will be able to receive the vaccine, per the news outlet.
Jeffrey Zients, White House Covid Response Coordinator, said in a press briefing, “The FDA authorization was the regulatory trigger that allowed for the beginning of the picking, packing and shipping processes and that started within minutes of the authorization.”
“We expect 7 million doses are already en route around the country,” he added. “In the next week, 15 million doses will be deployed around the country.”
However, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must officially sign off before distributing the doses to children.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet today to vote on whether to recommend the shots. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky is expected to sign off by today evening. And if that happens, medical professionals can start administering vaccines to children by tomorrow.
Zients said, “The number of sites will continue to increase throughout the week,” encouraging parents to help their kids get the vaccine. He expects the pediatrician vaccination program to be “fully up and running” by the week of November 8.
The number of pediatric COVID cases has been falling since early September. However, community transmission is still high in most counties.
Zients said, “We know vaccines are the very best tool we have to accelerate our path out of the pandemic.”
Pfizer said clinical trial data showed the low-dose vaccine has been found to be 91% effective against symptomatic illness, even against the more contagious Delta variant.
Dr. Walensky said Monday, “The FDA advisers reviewed safety data and found no severe adverse events,” adding that children were found to have similar vaccine side effects as adults, such as fever and sore arm.
Zients said the country has enough doses for children in the 5 to 11 age group to be fully vaccinated.
The article appeared on NBC News.
