Now that all states have extended admission to Covid-19 vaccines for everyone 16 years and older, older teens are queuing up for the shots – often with the help of high schools.
Getting shots in the arms of 16- and 17-year-olds is “essential,” said Tifini Ray, project manager for school health services at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
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This is partly because the number of cases of Covid-19 in childhood in the US is increasing. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, about 88,500 new cases were reported in children last week – an increase of 5 percent from previous weeks.
“Child cases really reflect what is going on in the surrounding community,” says Dr. Sean O’Leary, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Children’s Hospital Colorado. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the seven-day average of the new Covid-19 cases is generally slightly higher than the previous week.
While it is true that young people are prone to milder Covid-19 symptoms than older adults, children and teens can spread the coronavirus to older, more vulnerable groups. And they themselves can get quite sick and even die.
O’Leary, who is also vice chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Diseases, said vaccinating children could help keep schools safer. “Although the distribution in schools is small, it is not zero,” he said.
Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont were eligible on Monday for everyone 16 years and older – the final states to meet President Joe Biden’s goal of eligibility by April 19.
So far, only a small percentage of 16- and 17-year-olds have been able to get shots. Data from the CDC indicate that less than 1 percent of older teens are fully vaccinated.
It can be difficult for many parents – especially working parents – to find time to plan vaccinations for their older teens and then leave work to take their children to both appointments. Only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been approved for use in people as young as 16 years. It is given in two doses, three weeks apart. (The recordings by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson were allowed for adults 18 and older.)
This is where communities help them get the vaccines from children where they spend the most time: at school. Nationwide Children’s offers vaccination clinics in high schools in Franklin County, Ohio, which remain at the highest alert level in the state for the risk of exposure and spread of Covid-19.
Ray expects her team at Nationwide Children’s to give at least a first dose to nearly 7,000 teens in the Columbus area in the coming days.
“Our schools are still going strong, mostly personally,” Ray said. “It’s much easier for us to reach them in mass numbers while we have them in one place.”
High schools elsewhere are also opening vaccination clinics for eligible teens.
“We need to protect them so that they do not transmit the disease to those who are more vulnerable to the disease and its complications,” said Dr. Tamara Sheffield, the medical director of Intermountain Healthcare’s Community Health and Prevention initiative in Salt Lake, said. City, told the NBC subsidiary KSL.
At least two districts in the Salt Lake City area have opened vaccination clinics in schools. Other states follow the same. The Waterbury Public School District in Connecticut hosted hundreds of appointments for 16- and 17-year-olds this week.
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One of them was Michael Albino. “It was very difficult to schedule one, so I’m just very happy that I can finally do it,” Albino, a high school boy, told NBC Connecticut.
Pfizer has asked the Food and Drug Administration for authorization of the emergency vaccine in children aged 12 to 15. A decision could be made within the next few weeks.
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