According to the White House officials, American children ages five to eleven will soon be able to receive a coronavirus dose at the local pharmacy, pediatrician’s office, and likely even their school. Moreover, the White House detailed plans for the expected approval of the Pfizer dose for elementary school children during the coming weeks.
Federal officials will meet over the next fifteen days to weigh the effectiveness and safety of giving low-dose shots to approximately twenty-eight million school youngsters in that age group. Then, within some hours of official authorization, which projected after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) signs off and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) advisory panel meets on 2nd and 3rd November, millions of shots will start going out to providers all over the United States, as well as smaller needles needed for injecting young children.
In anticipation of upcoming FDA and CDC independent advisory committee meetings, @POTUS announced his plan to ensure that if a vaccine is authorized for children ages 5-11, it is quickly and equitably distributed to families across the country.https://t.co/Fi9icrXOwh
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 20, 2021
White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients said that they are finalizing the operational planning to ensure immunizations for children ages five to eleven are available, convenient, and easy. Further, he adds that they are going to be ready, pending the CDC and FDA decision. The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine requires two shots, twenty-one days apart, and fifteen days wait for complete protection to take effect, meaning the first kids in line will be fully covered by late December.
Moderna and Pfizer are Working on their Vaccines in Children Down to 6 Months Old
As for youngsters under five, Moderna and Pfizer are studying their coronavirus vaccines in children down to six months old, with results likely later in the year. The Biden government noted that the expansion of vaccine doses to children under twelve would not look like the start of the vaccine rollout of the country ten months ago when limited shots and insufficient capacity meant a conscientious wait for several Americans.
In addition, the United States now has sufficient supplies of the Pfizer dose to vaccinate kids who will soon be eligible, officials said, and they have been working for several months to ensure extensive availability of doses. As a result, around fifteen million shots will ship to providers across the United States in the first week after authentication, according to White House.
White House added that over twenty-five thousand primary care providers and pediatricians already signed on to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine to elementary school children, along with the tens of thousands of drugstores that are already injecting doses to adults. In addition, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will also support and fund many schools and community-based health clinics to help speed the process.
Maryland Officials offered to Help Schools set up Vaccination Clinics
Along with the schools, offices of doctors are possibly popular spots of the doses. State officials in Maryland offered to help schools set up inoculation clinics. Public schools plan Denver to hold mass vaccination events for young children, together with smaller clinics offering doses during the school timings in the evenings.
The public health department of Chicago is working in collaboration with schools, which have already been hosting coronavirus vaccination events for students age twelve and older and their families. Moreover, the White House is preparing a stepped-up campaign to instruct parents and children about the safety and effectiveness of the doses and the ease of getting them.
How many American children get infected by the virus?
According to the CDC, children run a lower risk than older individuals of getting seriously infected from coronavirus; at least six hundred and thirty-seven Americans died from the infection in the country. Six million American children infected from the virus, one million of them since early September amid the spread of the more transmissible COVID delta variant, according to the statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Health officials state that intensifying the coronavirus vaccine drive will combat the alarming number of infections in children and cut the spread of the disease to susceptible adults. It also could help schools stay open, and children get back on track academically and contribute to the wider recovery of the country from the deadly pandemic.
Dr. Vivek Murthy, the United States Surgeon General, told NBC News that coronavirus also disrupted the lives of American kids. It made school activities difficult and disrupted their ability to see family and friends; it also made youth sports more challenging. So the nation has the prospect of protecting kids by inoculating them and getting all of those daily life activities back that are so important to children.
Source: Web
The U.S. Acquired 65 Million Pfizer Pediatric Doses
Murthy further added that the federal government is leaving it up to local and state officials to decide whether to require school-going children to vaccinate. However, these types of measures would be a reasonable thing to consider. According to officials, the United States purchased sixty-five million shots of the Pfizer pediatric dose, which predicted as one-third of the shot administered to adolescents and adults.
The officials will ship them in smaller packages of around a hundred doses each so that more vaccine providers can deliver them, and they won’t require the coldest storage situation that the adult version did at first. Around two hundred and nineteen million American nationals age twelve and up, or sixty-six percent of the overall population, received a coronavirus dose, and approximately one hundred and ninety million received full vaccination. The president emphasized that the White House is leading with the science rather than health experts with its COVID-19 pandemic response and countrywide vaccination rollout.
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