Marin Readies To Vaccinate Young Children: Report

MARIN COUNTY, CA — Should the FDA approve COVID-19 vaccines for children ages 5 to 11 by the end of next month, Marin will be ready to administer shots in arms, SFGate reports.

Marin has tentatively scheduled vaccination events for three consecutive weekends starting in late October should the Pfizer vaccine receive FDA emergency use authorization for young children, the county’s top academic administrator told the publication.

But that still a big if, Marin County Superintendent of Schools Mary Jane Burke told the news outlet.

"We're getting ready but not until everything is approved," Burke said, according to the report.

"We're not going to vaccinate children tomorrow. Bottom line is that one of the hallmarks of the success we've had in Marin is the leadership of our public health department and they're forward thinking so we should be ready.”

The late October timeline for FDA approval isn’t so far-fetched.

Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb on Sunday said he believes the agency will grant emergency use authorization for children aged 5 to 11 by the end of October.

Gottlieb, who currently serves on Pfizer’s board of directors, said during an appearance on Face the Nation that the pharmaceutical giant expects to have data for vaccines on young children by the end of this month, which would be filed with the FDA “very quickly.”

The FDA could approve the vaccine for young kids within weeks, Gottlieb said.

"In a best-case scenario, given that timeline they've just laid out, you could potentially have a vaccine available to children aged 5 to 11 by Halloween," Gottlieb said.

"If everything goes well, the Pfizer data package is in order, and FDA ultimately makes a positive determination, I have confidence in Pfizer in terms of the data that they've collected. But this is really up to the Food and Drug Administration to make an objective determination."

The push to vaccinate young children comes as schools across the country are reopening amid a surge fueled by the delta variant.

Child COVID-19 cases have grown exponentially since early July, CNN reports.

The American Academy of Pediatrics reported 243,373 new cases among young children over the past week and 251,781 the previous week according to the report.

That’s a 240 percent increase over early July when 71,726 child COVID-19 cases were reported.

"After declining in early summer, child cases have increased exponentially with nearly 500,000 cases in the past two weeks," AAP said in a statement.

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