The COVID vaccine for kids under 5 is delayed, but Centre County providers are preparing now
Pfizer-BioNTech has postponed its application to the FDA for the COVID-19 vaccine for children under 5, but Centre County health care providers are making plans now for the rollout.
Pfizer is waiting for data on a third dosage, which is expected to be available in April, according to reports from NBC. Once approved by the FDA, children from 6 months to 4 years will be able to receive the Pfizer vaccine.
Stacey Cummings, vice chair of outpatient pediatrics at Gesinger Medical Group, said the delay in vaccination approval is not a safety issue but a dosage adjustment. Adults receive 30 micrograms of the vaccine while the dose for children under 5 is 3 micrograms.
“The bigger concern is if it has a responsive immune reaction in a certain subset of kids under 4, and the initial conclusion was the 2- to 4-year-olds may not have had the appropriate immune response that we expected to get an effective vaccine.”
Geisinger is planning to vaccinate at pediatrician offices with the possibility of a mass vaccination event. Parents can register at MyGeisinger online or make appointments by phone once vaccines are available. Patients do not need to see Geisinger physicians to make an appointment.
Mount Nittany Health has started a waitlist for patients to secure a spot once the vaccine has been approved. Appointments are only offered to current Mount Nittany Physician Group and Centre Volunteers In Medicine patients and can be made by calling 814-466-7921 or 814-355-3626.
“It’s a multilayer process,” Cummings said. “The FDA has to give approval, then the CDC has to give a recommendation and the CDC director has to sign off on it, and then we have to receive the vaccine from the Department of Health. So it’s multiple layers but we are prepared for each of those layers.”
The COVID-19 vaccine will not interfere with any of the other vaccines children receive in the 6-month to 5-year age range, Cummings said.
Geisinger is looking to keep vaccination efforts mostly at pediatricians’ offices due to their experience working with this age group.
“You want to make sure parents’ questions are answered,” Cummings said. “Also monitoring kids for side effects is a little different in this age group because depending on how young they are, they may not be able to verbally express what they’re experiencing.”
Centre Volunteers In Medicine, which has led a number of mass vaccination events around Centre County, will not be hosting vaccine clinics for children under 5.
“We reached out to the local pediatricians offices of Mount Nittany Health and Geisinger and they feel they can meet the need in the area for the vaccines,” Cheryl White, executive director of CVIM, said.
This story was originally published February 15, 2022 at 3:31 PM.