Californians ages 12 and up can now make appointments for the COVID-19 vaccine
The California Department of Public Health announced Tuesday that parents and guardians will be able to make appointments to get COVID-19 vaccinations for children ages 12 to 15 as early as Thursday morning.
“California is ready to safely deliver vaccines to young people age 12 and over,” said Erica Pan, CDPH state epidemiologist. “Our statewide vaccine network has the capacity to administer at least 2.5 million doses a week, and we’ve seen it do more than that. There’s additional capacity with vaccines available at local pharmacies and the federally qualified health centers and other providers that receive vaccine directly from the federal government as well.”
Dr. Mark Ghaly, the secretary of the Health and Human Services Agency, said leading scientists within the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Western Scientific Safety Review Workgroup are expected to sign off on use of the Pfizer vaccine in this age group Wednesday.
“It’s a big announcement that the (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) finds this a safe vaccine, an efficacious vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds,” Ghaly said. “We anticipated this for the last many weeks and have been planning accordingly.”
The vaccine is free to all California residents, regardless of whether they have insurance, Pan said, adding that no one will be asked about their immigration status.
Public Health will be working hard with pediatricians, schools, colleges, family practice clinics and other institutions serving the roughly 2.1 million California youths in this age group to ensure they can start immunizing young people against the coronavirus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19.
Like adults, young people who have received the vaccine have experienced minimal side effects such as fatigue, fever and headaches, Ghaly said, but significant side effects from the vaccine are exceedingly rare in all who have received it.
He noted that, as both a pediatrician and a parent of a 13-year-old, the start of vaccinations in this age group can’t come soon enough. Pan echoed that sentiment for her children.
“Young people have shouldered a significant burden throughout COVID in many ways, denied certain activities, certain milestones, certain important events; shouldering additional degrees of anxiety, depression and other mental health and behavioral health impacts,” Ghaly said. “The fact that we can now provide a certain degree of confidence and protection to those young people to start to resume activities, visit more with ... family and friends, I think it’s a tremendous opportunity for that group to experience that sense of normalcy that they have been missing.”
COVID remains an important threat to younger Californians, Ghaly said, and there have been cases where young Americans have died from the respiratory disease. Public Health does not plan, however, to require vaccinations before students can return to school because the vaccines are allowed currently under emergency use authorization from the FDA, not full FDA approval.
“As months move forward, that may change, and our consideration around how vaccines play into schools, institutes of higher education will be considered,” he said.
To ensure the vaccination of this additional group puts no strain on the system, Pan said the public health department has been enrolling additional providers and clinics to offer vaccinations for adolescents.
“We’ve done a lot to streamline our provider enrollment,” she said. “We’re doing everything we can to make it easier, partnering to provide technical assistance.”
Because the Pfizer vaccine requires ultra-cold freezers and comes in large shipments, Pan said, the state is also purchasing ultra-cold freezers for these small groups of providers and working with an organization that can break down the shipments into smaller amounts.
To learn more about getting vaccinated or to arrange an appointment, visit VaccinateALL58.com or myturn.ca.gov or call 833-422-4255.
As of Monday, California ranked 25th among states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of its population that is fully vaccinated with 35.5% getting the necessary jabs. Connecticut ranked first with 45% and Mississippi came in last with with only 25.1%.
This story was originally published May 11, 2021 at 5:50 PM with the headline "Californians ages 12 and up can now make appointments for the COVID-19 vaccine."
