COVID-19 vaccines could be available for 5- to 11-year-olds as early as next week if all goes well with the approval process, according to experts in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.
A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recommended emergency authorization of Pfizer-BioNTech'spediatric vaccine on Tuesday, which is one-third of the adult dose.
On Wednesday, Dr. Marty Fenstersheib, Santa Clara County's COVID-19 vaccine officer, said adult doses aren't authorized to be split and used for children as they have a different formulation. But the vaccinations for children could be available by Nov. 3, he said.
In San Mateo County, the health department has coordinated with the San Mateo County Office of Education to set up vaccination clinics at four local schools, including one at the Redwood City School District's Hoover Community School. According to an update published by the district on Friday, Hoover's clinic will take place from 2-7 p.m. on Thursday Nov. 18 and will be open to all 5-11 year olds in the county.
If the FDA adopts the recommendation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would then decide whether to approve the emergency use as soon as mid-week. When the vaccines first rollout. Santa Clara county's Department of Public Health expects to have 55,000 doses of the child-formulated Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. Those doses would put an initial shot in the arm of about one-third of the county's total population of 167,000 children who are 5- to 11-years-old, he said.
Fenstersheib said the county doesn't anticipate any shortages and expects there will be enough pediatric vaccines. Additional supplies will also be available in the following weeks.
According to Patricia Love, Executive Director of Strategy and Communications at the SMC Office of Education, the vaccination clinics will be administering first doses on Nov. 15 to 18 and second doses from Dec. 6 to 9. Love said that clinic sites were determined based on several criteria, including sufficient space, electricity, and volunteers.
To be fully vaccinated, children must receive two doses 21 days apart. They would attain complete immunity after two weeks of receiving the second dose. He said that the Pfizer pediatric vaccine has been shown to be 90% effective against causing symptomatic disease in children from the SARS-Co-V-2 virus, which causes COVID-19 infection.
Side effects from the pediatric vaccines have also proven to be relatively mild, with some pain in the arm, sometimes headaches and sometimes fatigue and some muscle aches, he said.
According to the RCSD, all families are required to register their children for vaccination before the clinic event. Information about registration, which is organized in partnership with Safeway, will be provided to all families in the coming weeks. The county is also hosting an informational webinar on Thursday, Nov. 4 with Stanford Professor of Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases Dr. Yvonne Maldonado. The event will take place at 6 p.m. in Spanish, with English interpretation available as well.
Vaccines will be available at many pharmacies, through private physicians, community vaccination clinics, or local pharmacies, such as Walgreens. About 11,000 of the initial 55,000 doses will be available through retail pharmacies, Fenstersheib said.
According to Belmont-Redwood Shores School District Superintendent Dan Deguara, the RCSD vaccine clinic will accommodate up to 500 kids. BRSSD alone has 4,000 students, though many of the 7th and 8th graders have already been vaccinated. And Love said she expects many families will choose to take their kids elsewhere in the next two weeks once doses become available.
"It's one out of a variety of options that will be available for us to get vaccinated," she said. And if children aren't able to get vaccinated then, more clinic days may be scheduled down the line.
"When we did this originally, we thought, 'Well, maybe if it goes well, we'll schedule some new ones,'" Love said. "I would not rule that out."
Health leaders anticipate there will be some hesitancy among some parents to have their children vaccinated, but Fenstersheib noted that "the risk of infection is real" and can be significant.
Nationally, 1.9 million children have been infected by the virus; more than 8,300 have been hospitalized and one-third of those hospitalizations resulted in children being in the intensive care unit.
More than 2,500 children have developed a multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a severe complication that can cause fever, rash and inflammation and swelling of body organs. Contrary to the idea that only children with underlying medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, and obesity develop complications, he added that most hospitalized children had no underlying health conditions.
In addition, the number of cases of "long COVID," a constellation of symptoms that can last for months or years, isn't known among the 5- to-11 age group, but the risk can be significant. No one knows what impact long-term COVID-19 symptoms will have on the brain, lungs, heart, cognition, and other factors over time, experts from Stanford Hospital and UCSF said on Tuesday during a special meeting of the county's Health and Hospital Committee.
"It's definitely a benefit to get the vaccination for the children because the risks of the disease are much worse than the vaccine's side effects," Fenstersheib added.
Currently, in Santa Clara, 73% of the county's total population has been vaccinated. At 80% of the total population, the county would relax the indoor mask ordinance, but 55% of children ages 5 to 11 would need to be vaccinated, Fenstersheib said.
Fenstersheib urged parents who are hesitant to have their children vaccinated to discuss their concerns with their health care provider.
In San Mateo County, about 91% of the population over 16 years has been vaccinated, higher than the national average. The mask mandate is inching closer to being lifted as more and more people get vaccinated.
To lift the mandate, a county would need to meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's criteria for the moderate yellow tier for COVID-19 transmission for three consecutive weeks; 80% of the county's total population has had both doses of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or one shot of Janssen/Johnson & Johnson's vaccine; hospital rates must remain low and stable.
It could be lifted altogether if eight weeks have passed since a COVID-19 vaccine has been authorized for emergency use by federal and state authorities for 5- to 11-year-olds.
Getting the vaccines won't immediately lead to children taking their masks off in schools, however, he said.
"Just because we're getting these kids vaccinated doesn't mean they're all going to take off their masks at this point. This is just another layer of safety, he said.
Although the number of COVID-19 cases has declined in recent weeks, the curve is now flattening. It's too soon to predict if there will be another winter surge of infections as people spend more time indoors and gather for holidays.
The key to keeping a surge at bay continues to be vigilance, practicing social distancing and good sanitation, wearing masks and getting vaccinated, he said. The more vaccinated people, the better the chances will be of keeping a winter surge down, he added.
"Everyone do their part and get your kids vaccinated," he said.
Watch Fenstersheib's full remarks:
This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
This story has been updated to reflect that there is going to be one vaccination clinic at an RCSD school.
