Small Needles, Short Lines and Few Tears: Biden’s Plan to Vaccinate Young Children
The New York Times
White House officials, anticipating the approval of coronavirus shots for 5- to 11-year-olds within weeks, will rely on doctors, clinics and pharmacies instead of mass inoculation sites.
WASHINGTON — The campaign to vaccinate young children in the United States against the coronavirus will not look like it did for adults. There will be no mass inoculation sites. Pediatricians will be enlisted to help work with parents. Even the vials — and the needles to administer doses — will be smaller.
Biden administration officials, anticipating that regulators will make the vaccines available to 5- to 11-year-olds in the coming weeks, is laying out plans to ensure that some 25,000 pediatric or primary care offices, thousands of pharmacies, and hundreds of school and rural health clinics will be ready to administer shots if the vaccine receives federal authorization.
The campaign aims to fulfill the unique needs of patients largely still in elementary school, while absorbing the lessons from the rollout of vaccines to other age groups.
