McHenry County Preps To Get COVID-19 Shots To Young Children

MCHENRY COUNTY, IL — McHenry County is beginning to plan how to most efficiently and effectively get shots into the arms of young children.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Food and Drug Administration's independent advisory group recommended the approval of Pfizer-BioNTech's application for emergency use authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11. Currently, only children 12 and older are eligible to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.

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There are more than 28,500 children in McHenry County in the 5-11 age group, and county health officials anticipate half of that population will be vaccinated, Salvatelli said.

In the coming days, the FDA is expected to accept the advisory group's recommendations and issue an emergency authorization for the Pfizer vaccine for children 5-11. From there, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's independent advisory group, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, will meet Nov. 2 and 3 to issue its own independent recommendations.

If approved, parents with young children will be able to start making plans to get shots for their kids.

In McHenry County, the health department is working to set up pediatric vaccination clinics, which should be available after the CDC gives their formal recommendation, Lindsey Salvatelli, community information coordinator for the McHenry County Department of Health, told Patch.

Here are the other steps the health department is currently taking to plan for vaccine allocation:

• Health officials are encouraging pediatric offices interested in administering the vaccine to plan ahead to ensure they are set up to administer vaccine once the CDC makes its recommendation.
• The health department is reaching out to doctor's offices and pharmacies to get an idea of "who will or will not be administering vaccine when the time comes."

Once the CDC makes its recommendation, the online portal, vaccines.gov, should be updated with information about vaccine availability for the 5-11 age group and where parents can go to get a vaccine, Salvatelli said.

"We’ve heard back from more pharmacies, and it sounds like they are planning to deliver vaccine to this group, but it most likely vary from pharmacy to pharmacy," Salvatelli said. "We are also moving forward with our plans to vaccinate this group at our clinics after the CDC approves, which we think will happen by Nov. 4."

The McHenry County Department of Health currently offers COVID-19 vaccine clinics for anyone 12 and older at its offices located at 100 N. Virginia Street in Crystal Lake and 2200 N. Seminary Road Annex A in Woodstock.

Vaccine supply is not expected to be an issue this time around, and the dose of the vaccine for children in the 5-11 age group is smaller than an adult dose — 10 micrograms rather than 30. So are the needles. But, like adults, children will require two shots about 21 days apart to be fully vaccinated.

Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said their data shows the vaccine was "well tolerated and showed [a] robust neutralizing antibody response" in the younger age group.

Children do not usually get as sick, as often, as adults who catch the coronavirus, but hundreds of children have died from COVID-19, and thousands have been hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Across Illinois, pediatric emergency rooms have seen a "serious increase" of children with COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses. Officials warned of overcrowded emergency departments ill-equipped for a surge of infections, even cautioning parents to "seek care at an emergency department [only] if their child is seriously ill."

Dr. Ngozi Ezike, Illinois' top public health official, urged parents to get their children vaccinated as soon as they are eligible.

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Pfizer said the safety profile of the vaccine for children was comparable to the adult version. Potential side effects include soreness at the injection site, fatigue, fever, chills and headache. Allergic reactions are very rare, and easily treatable if they do occur.

Like its adult data, the full data from Pfizer's clinical trial for children will be available for peer review, the company said. The company expects to release data and seek emergency use authorization for children as young as 6 months old later this year, according to a news release.

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Teachers in Illinois must be vaccinated against COVID-19 or face weekly testing, but as yet, K-12 students have not been required to add the vaccine to the list of shots they must get to attend school. College students, for whom the vaccine is fully approved, do face such requirements.

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