Kane Co. Officials Prep Vaccine Rollout For Young Children

ST. CHARLES, IL — In the coming weeks, Kane County parents will likely have the chance to start vaccinating their young children.

The drug company Pfizer earlier this month asked regulators to approve its COVID-19 vaccine for use in children 5 to 11 years old. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is set to discuss Pfizer's data at a meeting on Oct. 26, and an independent CDC advisory committee will meet on November 2 and 3 to issue their recommendation.

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State and county officials are preparing for the rollout with the hopes of beginning to get shots into young children's arms in early November.

Supply is not expected to be an issue. And as soon as the vaccine is approved for the younger age group, vaccination clinics will be set up at doctors officers, hospitals, pharmacies, community health centers and schools, officials said.

The issue over getting shots into the arms of Kane County residents has come down to residents' personal choices, officials said. During a county board meeting earlier this week, Michael Isaacson, the county's assistant director for community health, said progress has been "very slow," according to the Daily Herald.

Currently, more than 57 percent of Kane County residents are fully vaccinated, according to public health data. In St. Charles, that number is much higher.

In the 60175 and 60119 zip codes, more than 67 percent of residents are fully vaccinated, according to public health data. Comparably, only 40 percent of residents in the 60505 zip code in East Aurora have received their COVID-19 shots.

County officials are hoping residents make better choices for their children than they have for themselves when the vaccine is approved for younger children, according to the Daily Herald.

"People know, even within their own homes, where the resistance is," Isaacson said. "We are hitting that wall. And that's because of a choice they've made rather than an access (to the vaccine) issue."

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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.

Currently, Kane County is labeled as a county with a high transmission rate and the county's positivity rate is 3.0 percent. To date, 68,469 Kane County residents have tested positive for COVID-19, with more than 12,000 under the age of 20 years old — the age group in Kane with the highest number of cases — have contracted the virus since the beginning of the pandemic, according to public health data.

In Kane County, the virus has killed 872 residents.

Ryne Danielson contributed to this reporting.