‘We may have vaccines for children 5 to 11, possibly as soon as next week,’ Chicago health official says
Chicago Department of Health Commissioner (CDPH) Allison Arwady said they may have vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, “possibly as soon as next week.”
“If everything moves as expected, we may have vaccines for children 5 to 11, possibly as soon as next week,” she said in a news conference Tuesday.
Her comments come after vaccine advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration voted 17-0, with one abstention, to recommend emergency use authorization of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11.
Given that the FDA approval was expected, all federally qualified health centers serving children across the state have already placed orders, according to Arwady.
“This is not going to be the hunger games,” she said. “We estimate that there are 210,448 children living in Chicago between the ages of 5 and 11. I would like to reassure you that nearly 100,000 pediatric doses are tentatively scheduled to arrive in Chicago in the first week of pediatric vaccine alone.”
“There will be vaccine available. The best place to go is your pediatrician, and we will make available the lists of which pediatricians will have vaccine right from the beginning,” she said. As for pharmacies, all local Walgreens would be offering pediatric vaccines “right away.”
Children will also have the option to be vaccinated at school, according to Arwady.
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) said they would provide access to the vaccine through the District’s regional clinics, school-based health centers and school-based mobile events across the for those 5 to 11, according to a news release by CDPH.
“In addition to providing access to the vaccine for our eligible younger students, we will be implementing a robust public information campaign to communicate that the vaccine is safe, effective, and crucial to protect the health of CPS parents, students, staff, and all of our school communities,” CPS CEO Pedro Martinez said.
Separately, Arwady gave an update on Chicago’s travel advisory, saying, “We continue to see improvement across the U.S. with the Delta variant. As of today, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, and Mississippi are all being removed from the travel advisory.”
