Greater than 900,000 U.S. youngsters aged 5 to 11 have obtained their first Covid-19 shot by the top of Wednesday, the White Home mentioned, as the federal government ramped up vaccinations of youthful youngsters.
America started administering Pfizer /BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine to youngsters ages 5 to 11 on November 3, the newest group to turn into eligible for the photographs that present safety towards the sickness to recipients and people round them.
“Whereas our program is simply absolutely up and operating this week, by the top of the day right now, we estimate that over 900,000 children aged 5 via 11 can have already gotten their first shot,” White Home COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients mentioned throughout a briefing with reporters.
Zients final week mentioned that 15 million doses particularly formulated for that age group could be accessible this week and that the federal authorities had bought sufficient provide for all 28 million eligible youngsters.
“The primary few days of the roll out had been predictably troublesome for people to search out vaccine appointments for youngsters,” mentioned Amesh Adalja, senior scholar on the Johns Hopkins Middle for Well being Safety.
“Nevertheless it does appear that it’s changing into simpler for youngsters to get vaccinated as the main pharmacy chains, hospitals, and different organizations are growing their potential to vaccinate.”
Walgreens Boots Alliance mentioned in a press release that it has immunized greater than 200,000 youngsters towards COVID-19 and booked a whole lot of 1000’s of appointments over the following few weeks.
Kids’s Hospital Los Angeles has inoculated 425 youngsters since Nov. 3 and expects to quickly be vaccinating round 90 youngsters day by day because it books extra appointments, she mentioned.
The 900,000 determine comes from a White Home evaluation of obtainable knowledge from pharmaceutical companions, some states, and localities, Zients mentioned on Wednesday, including that the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) has not but collected the total tally.
“That is the very starting…we count on increasingly more children to get vaccinated throughout time,” he mentioned.
COVID-19 is the most important vaccine-preventable killer of kids in that age group, with 66 U.S. youngsters dying from it over the previous 12 months, CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky mentioned in the course of the briefing.
She provided no timeline for when the CDC would have knowledge on the variety of youthful youngsters vaccinated.
The seven-day common of complete COVID-19 instances in america was flat at about 73,300 over the previous week, Walensky mentioned, with the hospitalization price additionally flat at 5,000 a day. The U.S. seven-day common of day by day deaths fell 11% to about 1,000 per day.
(Reuters)