COVID Vaccine For PA Children Coming: New Timeline, Rollout Plan

Norristown PA

20 October, 2021

12:55 PM

Description

PENNSYLVANIA — President Biden's administration announced its vaccine rollout plan for children on Wednesday, as final approval for the last major swath of unvaccinated Americans is expected in the coming weeks. Vaccine availability and distribution will look decidedly different than the initial rollout of the adult Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine earlier this year. Governors nationwide were told to expect to begin vaccinating children ages 5 to 11 in early November. 65 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine intended for the age group - enough to inoculate 28 million individuals - have already been procured by the Biden administration, according to a statement. The White House also added that it informed providers that, within a week of FDA approval, the vaccine (packaged in 10-dose vials in cartons of 10 vials each, delivered in a "newly updated product shipper") would be delivered to thousands of sites. An FDA advisory committee is slated to meet on Oct. 26 to discuss the emergency use of the vaccine for children, with a ruling expected just days later. After that meeting, the FDA is expected to approve the shot for kids as early as Halloween or by early November. In Pennsylvania, school districts have been told to contact vaccine providers and to prepare to schedule vaccine clinics at the school or at another agreed upon location. Vaccine providers have been ordered by the Department of Health to cooperate. If vaccine providers are not able to host a vaccine clinic with a given school, the provider is responsible for getting that school to contact the Department of Health to coordinate an alternative. "It's not too early to schedule a vaccine clinic in November in anticipation of federal approval for kids between 5 and 11," Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam said in a statement. Orders for vaccine shipments will be placed in Pennsylvania once the state receives guidance from the federal government, a spokesperson for the Department of Health told Patch. About half a million school-aged children are already vaccinated in Pennsylvania. But the rollout differences don't stop there: the needles and vials used to administer and store the vaccine will both be smaller, with the children's dose to contain 10 micrograms (rather than the 30-microgram dose used for individuals over the age of 12). These vials can be stored for up to 10 weeks at regular refrigeration temperatures and up to six months in colder conditions. The vaccine will also be administered in two shots given 21 days apart. Pfizer tested its COVID vaccine on 2,268 children in the 5-11 age group, announcing on Sept. 20 that the vaccine showed positive results when children were given a third of the dose that was given to adults. Read more: Pfizer Says Low COVID Vaccine Dose Is Good For Kids 5 To 11 The children demonstrated a strong immune response one month after the second dose, said Pfizer in a statement. Further, the COVID-19 vaccine was well tolerated, with side effects generally comparable to those observed in participants 16 to 25 years old. Study results from the infant and toddler trial are expected to come sometime in November or December. The 5- to 11-year old age group boasts roughly 11 million more individuals, according to the 12-to-15 age group, according to the New York Times. The latter group has been eligible for the Pfizer vaccine since May. Per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, hospitalizations and COVID-19 related deaths are uncommon in children, though experts still warn of serious complications that could arise in the long-term. "Millions of adolescents ages 12-17 have been safely vaccinated, and we know vaccines work. Fully vaccinated individuals are 10 times less likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 and have a high degree of protection, including against the Delta variant," the White House said in a statement. "The consequences of a pediatric COVID-19 case can be serious and potentially last months." Thousands of children have been hospitalized with COVID-related complications since 2020. Of the 73 million children in the U.S., over 5 million have tested positive for COVID and around 650 have died of COVID-19, according to the CDC. "The good news continues to be that this is not a common problem for kids," said Dr. Daniel Rauch, chief of pediatric hospital medicine at Tufts Children's Hospital in Boston, told USA Today. "The bad news is kids are not immune to this." Related: Booster, Third Doses: NJ 'Ready To Provide' Additional Doses Of Moderna, J&J Vaccines With reporting by Patch correspondents Nicole Rosenthal and Carly Baldwin.