The F.D.A.’s authorization of Pfizer’s Covid shot for 12- to 15-year-olds is a milestone in battling the coronavirus, but actually getting them vaccinated involves new challenges.
Covid shots being administered by a health program in Denver that works with schools to vaccinate older teenagers — and soon, younger ones — at health clinics it runs in six public schools. Credit...Kevin Mohatt for The New York Times
By Abby Goodnough and Jan Hoffman May 11, 2021
The race is on to vaccinate the nation’s nearly 17 million 12- to 15-year-olds against Covid-19.
The Food and Drug Administration’s decision on Monday to authorize the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for younger adolescents presents a new opportunity in the push for broad immunity against the coronavirus in the United States. But the challenges of getting them vaccinated are more complicated than for adults and older teenagers.
“The game changes when you go down as young as 12 years old,” said Nathan Quesnel, the superintendent of schools in East Hartford, Conn., adding, “You need to have a different level of sensitivity.”
A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Vaccine Monitor found that many parents — even some who eagerly got their own Covid shots — are reluctant to vaccinate pubescent children. Yet doing so will be critical for further reducing transmission of the virus, smoothly reopening middle and high schools and regaining some sense of national normalcy.
Vaccination for the age group is expected to begin across the country later this week. Sites are anticipating an initial surge in demand before an inevitable softening, much as happened with adults.
States, counties and school districts around the country are trying to figure out the most reassuring and expedient ways to reach younger adolescents as well as their parents, whose consent is usually required by state law. They are making plans to offer vaccines not only in schools, but also at pediatricians’ offices, day camps, parks and even beaches.
Children’s Minnesota, a Minneapolis-based hospital system where the main Covid vaccination site has offered stress balls, colored lights and images of playful dolphins projected on the ceiling, is planning to provide shots beginning later this week in at least a dozen middle schools and a Y.W.C.A.
In Columbus, Ohio, public health nurses will drive a mobile vaccination unit around neighborhoods “just like you would an ice cream truck,” said Dr. Mysheika Roberts, the city health commissioner. In Connecticut, Community Health Center, a statewide primary care provider that vaccinated the busloads of high school seniors, is aiming to reach younger adolescents by offering shots at amusement parks, beaches and camps, among other locales.
“You’re going to Dollar General?” said Yvette Highsmith-Francis, a vice president of Community Health Center. “Guess what? We’re in the parking lot.”
But with the school year ending soon, many health officials are racing against the academic clock to schedule both recommended doses, seeing schools as the best place to reach many students at once.
A vial of the Pfizer vaccine at the Denver School of Science and Technology Green Valley Ranch this month.Credit...Kevin Mohatt for The New York Times
“We have a very finite amount of time,” said Dr. Anne Zink, the chief medical officer for Alaska. “In Alaska, kids go to the wind as soon as summer hits, so our opportunity to get them is now.”
A number of places are revving up vaccination efforts in schools. In Colorado, Denver Health will expand clinics it operates in six public schools to middle school students. For the last few weeks, it has provided 150 to 400 vaccines every Saturday and Sunday, reaching not just high school juniors and seniors but sometimes their parents and older siblings, too.
“It’s been really successful because we are doing it in their communities, where the kids are familiar,” said Dr. Sonja O’Leary, the medical director for Denver Health’s school-based health centers.
Other states believe pediatricians’ and family doctors’ offices will be the best places to catch teenagers — and children as young as infants as companies plan eventually to seek authorization for the shots to be given to the youngest children. Until recently, few doctors had vaccines on hand for patients. But in recent weeks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has made a major push to enroll pediatricians to give the shots.
The thinking is that pediatricians are in the best position to field questions from parents and children. Not only are they experienced in giving routine childhood vaccinations, but they are also often a household’s most trusted source of health information.
President Biden announced plans last week to ship doses of the Pfizer vaccine directly to pediatricians’ offices, and he said that about 20,000 pharmacy sites were also ready to administer the vaccine to younger adolescents.
There are also practical issues. Staggering Covid shots around the routine vaccines required for school in September — which many children are behind on because of the pandemic — will be complicated. According to the C.D.C., no vaccines can be given two weeks before and after a Covid vaccine.
Pediatricians are used to talking to nervous parents about vaccines, but they concede that the Covid shot poses unique persuasion challenges. To help these conversations, the American Academy of Pediatrics has posted answers to frequently asked questions and has been holding virtual training workshops.
Pediatricians say they have been getting vaccine questions for months.
Many parents and teenagers have been stirred by false information coursing across the internet about the shots’ impact on fertility and menstrual cycles, said Dr. Hina Talib, an adolescent medicine specialist at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx, who posts on Instagram as @teenhealthdoc.
“With hormones floating around during puberty, parents ask if it’s dangerous for their child to be given a vaccine during that time,” Dr. Talib said. The questions reflect the parents’ thoughtfulness, she said, and need to be addressed respectfully.