Iowa will get more than 99,000 COVID vaccines for kids 5-11 this week

By Nick Coltrain, Des Moines Register

Federal regulators approved COVID-19 vaccines for kids ages 5 to 11 Tuesday night and Iowa vaccinators said they’ll start taking appointments soon.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky signed off on the emergency use authorization just hours after an advisory panel unanimously recommended its approval. Iowa state health officials previously said they expected as many as 99,000 doses for children this week, though that doesn’t count doses shipped directly to pharmacies. There are about 284,000 Iowa children in the 5-11 age range.

The pediatric dose is a third the amount that adults receive, but studies show it still creates a robust immune response, Iowa doctors said recently. Like adults’, the pediatric dose will be delivered in two shots delivered three weeks apart.

Iowa Department of Public Health spokesperson Sarah Ekstrand advised parents to contact their children’s typical vaccine providers, such as pediatricians, family medical clinics or local public health departments about scheduling the vaccine.

Hy-Vee, the largest pharmacy chain in Iowa, will open its online appointment scheduler for kids soon, spokesperson Christina Gayman said. The vaccine for children, like all COVID-19 vaccines, will be free. Once approved, appointments can be made at hy-vee.com/covidvaccine. She warned there may be limited supplies initially.

 

The Polk County Health Department was waiting until the approval was final before announcing its process, spokesperson Nola Aigner Davis said Monday.

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zientz said at a Monday briefing that there is enough vaccine for all 28 million children in the United States, with the federal vaccination program at “full strength” starting next week.

“We know vaccines are the very best tool we have to accelerate our path out of the pandemic,” Zients said at the briefing, according to a transcript provided by the White House. “And we’re hard at working — at executing across a number of fronts, from vaccinating the unvaccinated, to getting booster shots to tens of millions of eligible Americans, to standing up our vaccination program for kids ages 5 through 11

Nick Coltrain is a politics and data reporter for the Register. Reach him at [email protected] or at 515-284-8361.

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