FRESNO, CA (KMJ) – California announces on Wednesday a plan to vaccinate young children against Covid-19.
“The more vaccinations we get into the arms of eligible Californians, the more we stop the spread and shrink the pool of people vulnerable to COVID-19. This will get us closer to ending the pandemic.”
– Dr. Erica Pan, California State Epidemiologist, and the Deputy Director of the Center for Infectious Diseases.
Officials said they will offer doses to 3.5 million children in the age group 5 to 11 as soon as the end of next week as soon as the vaccines receive full approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Speaking on Wednesday, State Health and Human Services secretary, Dr. Mark Ghaly said in a few days California expects to receive 1.2 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children in the age group 5 to 11.
Dr. Erica Pan, the state’s epidemiologist, said the more than 1.2 million vaccine doses will be ready to distribute within the first week after the shots get approved.
“We have around 4,000 sites that are ready to administer and over 1,000 providers across the state enrolled to vaccinate. More than 860,000 doses of vaccine have already been ordered.”
– Dr. Erica Pan, California State Epidemiologist, and the Deputy Director of the Center for Infectious Diseases
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On Tuesday, an FDA committee voted to endorse the authorization of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11 in an amount that’s a third of the adult dose.
In California, an additional review will be completed by the Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup before children in the 5-11 target age group are vaccinated. The review by the group – a coalition of public health experts from California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington may take an additional day to finish.
Dr Ghaly added statistics about the unvaccinated:
6.6x more likely to be infected with COVID
12x more likely to be hospitalized
18x more likely to die
– Dr. Mark Ghaly, State Health and Human Services Secretary.
Dr. Ghaly said California’s Department of Public Health is already working with schools to administer vaccines, and he expects to see more clinics at education centers by November.
Some schools are collaborating with pharmacies and health-care providers to administer shots.
