White House Details Plans to Vaccinate Children Age 5-11

Yara Sameh

The Biden administration detailed Wednesday its plan to vaccinate millions of U.S. children ages 5 to 11 as soon as the coronavirus vaccine is authorized for them.

The White House announced it is working on setting up clinics in over 100 children's hospital systems nationwide as well as doctor's offices, pharmacies, and potentially schools.

In case Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE's vaccine receives wider authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the administration aims to ensure quick and equitable distribution.

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FDA officials with its panel of outside advisers on Oct. 26 are reviewing the Pfizer/BioNTech application seeking authorization of its 2-dose vaccine for younger children. The FDA typically follows the advice of its panel but is not required to do so.

Advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will mull over the recommendations for the vaccine at a meeting on Nov. 2 and Nov. 3, helping to inform a final decision by its director.

In a statement, White House COVID response coordinator Jeff Zients stated that if the FDA and CDC authorize the vaccine, they will be ready to get shots in arms, adding that the government had 15 million doses set to ship nationwide, with millions more going out in the weeks to follow.

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Upon authorization, roughly 28 million more children would become eligible to receive what would be the first U.S. coronavirus vaccine for younger kids.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is already available to those ages 12-17 with the companies are still studying it for children younger than 5.

Zients added that the administration had worked with Pfizer to modify the packaging of the pediatric doses to make it easier to administer to children, including providing smaller needles.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky highlighted that the agency would continue to recommend mask-wearing in schools even as the vaccine is rolled out for children.

Walensky stated the seven-day average of coronavirus cases in the U.S was down about 16% to some 75,500 cases per day, while hospitalizations were down about 11% to around 6,000 per day and the daily deaths were down about 3% to 1,200.