‘Sigh of relief’ as children start receiving COVID-19 vaccines
Connecticut’s Hartford Hospital didn’t waste any time.
As soon as Pfizer-biontech’s COVID-19 vaccine was approved Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for children 5 to 11, the hospital began getting shots in little arms.
“It’s a sigh of relief as parents,” said Reem Nouh, whose son, Kareem Omar, 7, was vaccinated at the hospital Tuesday night. “It didn’t hurt,” Kareem said seconds after he received his shot, reassuring the other children waiting.
He was the first school-age child in the nation to get the vaccine after it was authorized, said White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients.
Dozens more locations around the country began administering first doses to kids Wednesday, and hundreds more sites are expected to open in the coming days as the national push to vaccinate about 28 million elementary school children ramps up.
CVS and Walgreens, the two largest pharmacy chains in the country, accept appointments for COVID-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11.
Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, opened its online appointment system for children’s COVID-19 shots Tuesday.
“We had 2,000 appointments open, and they were all gone within two and a half hours,” said Michael Storey, a pharmacist at the hospital. More will be added soon, he said.
By the end of the week, the government website Vaccines.gov will list places where kids can get vaccinated in their neighborhood, Zients said.
At that point, parents and guardians can go to the website, type in their ZIP code, click a box or the Pfizer-biontech pediatric COVID-19 vaccine and get a list of clinics, physicians and pharmacies that have it available. The list is expected to expand over time as more sites open appointments.