Please post the latest on Covid vaccines for kids

[bisous]

I don't know the answer, and I would love to hear other thoughts. I have 2 guesses one is that before trying to move teens up they want to make sure everyone over 16 has had their chance. We are still having issues with people who want the vaccine and are eligible getting it here. It has gotten better, but still an issue..so they may not want to rush out a new eligibility group, especially one they think is less "high risk". Other guess is maybe they still will, but know better than to speculate about that possibility.

I cannot wait until ds (15) can get vaccinated; it will make such a huge difference for our family and I am not even talking about doing anything crazy. Just the usual. OTOH, one thing I do kind of look towards with some dread is what it will be like when the first vaccines for teens come out and so many parents are wanting to get it for their kids ASAP. Unless there are some really good systems for that process it is going to be insane.

I'm a little worried about the process too! Only Pfizer is this close to getting EUA so we'll REALLY need to lean on that vaccine in order to cover everyone from age 12 to 17 who cannot get any other vaccine at this point.

[MSWR0319]

I don't know the answer, and I would love to hear other thoughts. I have 2 guesses one is that before trying to move teens up they want to make sure everyone over 16 has had their chance. We are still having issues with people who want the vaccine and are eligible getting it here. It has gotten better, but still an issue..so they may not want to rush out a new eligibility group, especially one they think is less "high risk". Other guess is maybe they still will, but know better than to speculate about that possibility.

I cannot wait until ds (15) can get vaccinated; it will make such a huge difference for our family and I am not even talking about doing anything crazy. Just the usual. OTOH, one thing I do kind of look towards with some dread is what it will be like when the first vaccines for teens come out and so many parents are wanting to get it for their kids ASAP. Unless there are some really good systems for that process it is going to be insane.

That's kind of what I was thinking as well, that they were thinking the younger kids wouldn't be eligible for awhile due to availability and didn't want to say summer in case it is later since we don' know when that approval will come through. In our area, I could take my 12 year old up to Walgreens right now to get a shot if the EUA was approved. They have that many appointments available in our area and we've been at 16+ for only a few days. So I'm hopeful he can get a shot by August if the approval comes through.

[dogmom]

That's kind of what I was thinking as well, that they were thinking the younger kids wouldn't be eligible for awhile due to availability and didn't want to say summer in case it is later since we don' know when that approval will come through. In our area, I could take my 12 year old up to Walgreens right now to get a shot if the EUA was approved. They have that many appointments available in our area and we've been at 16+ for only a few days. So I'm hopeful he can get a shot by August if the approval comes through.

This is SO frustrating for me. My 18 yo works in a grocery store, my DH is 58. Both meet the criteria for vaccines, but there are NO appointments to be had in my state. We are solidly in the middle of vaccination rates for the US. Are these other places just not having as many people wanting to get vaccinated? Do they have more vaccines? A better system. I’m waiting on state level mass vaccination sites. There are no appointments anywhere at CVS or Walgreens.

[dogmom]

Double post

[bisous]

I've been following Dear Pandemic for a while and they are fabulous. A couple of other evidence-driven folks to follow (both on FB as well as online blog):

Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist: https://emily-smith.net/ (approaches data from a faith-based perspective, and is fabulous!)
Your Local Epidemiologist: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/ (she initially started posting in our town FB group and I think a bunch of people told her she needed a wider reach. Her posts are easy to read, concise, focused, and really great.

It's really cool that all these ladies (and moms!) work together to help fight misinformation and provide up-to-date data. They were even all featured in a recent TIME magazine article! https://time.com/5947557/covid-19-va...ormation-moms/

Anyway, I just read through the Pfizer/BioNTech official press release carefully and it certainly sounds very promising and I don't see any red flags. It's preliminary and topline data only, so we still need to wait for details. I'm still hoping for an EUA BEFORE fall, selfishly, because our schools start so early here... They also state the vaccine's brand name in the press release and gotta say...it's awful. LOLOL. Probably can't be helped...drug names follow pretty stringent nomenclature "rules".

eta: Also, I think I figured out the answer to my question about whether trial participants are likely to be more careful/not really a "real-world" population. For the kids 12-15 study it seems that part of the screening process included determining exposure risk. So a participant would have to have enough exposure risk (e.g. attending school, athletics, etc) in order to be enrolled in the study.

Fascinating on the screening criterion for the youth participants! Would you mind sharing the name? You got me curious!

[JustMe]

This is SO frustrating for me. My 18 yo works in a grocery store, my DH is 58. Both meet the criteria for vaccines, but there are NO appointments to be had in my state. We are solidly in the middle of vaccination rates for the US. Are these other places just not having as many people wanting to get vaccinated? Do they have more vaccines? A better system. I’m waiting on state level mass vaccination sites. There are no appointments anywhere at CVS or Walgreens.

So frustrating! I am interested in hearing why there is such a difference between states. My state is in the same position as yours. I know our county says they have systems in place to vaccinate lots more people and are just not getting enough vaccine.

[o_mom]

Fascinating on the screening criterion for the youth participants! Would you mind sharing the name? You got me curious!

The generic name is tozinameran, brand name is Comirnaty.

https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketi...vid-19-vaccine

Honestly, doesn't really matter. Most people have not a clue what brandname their vaccines are. They can't market it at this point anyway, and really don't need to.

[MSWR0319]

This is SO frustrating for me. My 18 yo works in a grocery store, my DH is 58. Both meet the criteria for vaccines, but there are NO appointments to be had in my state. We are solidly in the middle of vaccination rates for the US. Are these other places just not having as many people wanting to get vaccinated? Do they have more vaccines? A better system. I’m waiting on state level mass vaccination sites. There are no appointments anywhere at CVS or Walgreens.

It's frustrating to me too! Frustrating that people aren't getting shots and frustrating that we have so many that people elsewhere could be getting them.

So I think the reason for having so many available is a combination of things.
1. There are many here who don't want it. They don't think the virus is a big deal. (Only 8% voted Democrat in the last election)
2. Many people have already had covid and think they don't need the shot now
3. People are concerned that it's too new
4. They have all decided they want the J&J because they don't want to have their DNA changed (true story) or be tracked. You can't find the J&J hardly at all, but Pfizer and Moderna are widely available.
5. They don't know where to find the vaccine - many are just using the state's site but it only shows two places in our county giving it.
6. 40 and younger doesn't seem to be wanting shots at all for the most part or don't know they are eligible
7. Only 15% of the adult population in my county has a college degree of any sort. I think this plays into people believing all of the false statements going around because they don't research or believe in science, but instead like to believe whatever they hear.

I volunteered at a clinic last week that the health department was putting on. They had 1300 shots available and as of 9am on the morning of the clinic, they had 100 shot appointments still available. This clinic was wide open to 16+. Probably 80% were still older than 40. I did see some teens and a few here and there who were in their 20s or 30s, but not many. I had one couple tell me they drove two hours from another state because they couldn't get shots in their state and the poor wife had 30% lung capacity. I met another girl who drive an hour from a different state. I had people telling me they didn't know how to find shots and had been on a waiting list at the hospital for weeks, when the hospital finally called them and told them they were giving their name to the health department. The lady said she had never thought to call the health department. My dad keeps telling me his friends keep telling him they can't find shots for any of their family members who are 60+, and they don't understand how people are getting them. My dad told them all of the places available to get the shots, and they just don't do anything about it. I did run into a few people I knew at the clinic who said they got the appointment because they saw that I had posted the link to sign up on FB. I got a text from a friend last week asking if he could just bring his brother to the clinic because he didn't think he'd go himself or make the effort to schedule an appointment (and his wife is a cancer survivor) even after I gave him the link to book an appointment the same day at Rite Aid and the phone number to get the clinic appointment. He was apprehensive about getting it. I got a text yesterday from another friend yesterday who said he didn't know how to book an appointment or who to call or where to go, and he'd heard that I knew what to do. I saw on our health department's FB page a woman attacking them because she couldn't go to the weekend clinic and needed an appointment. I gave her 5 options, others told her that clinics are also during the week and all she had were excuses. They were too far (14 miles from her home was the one I gave her that had appointments wide open that day), she didn't trust the provider because she almost sued them once, etc. The excuses just went on and and. They basically want the shot hand delivered to their house or think someone is just going to magically call them up offering an appointment that fits perfectly into their schedule. I have made it my mission to share every time I see shots available on FB so that people know where to get shots. I will say I've received a lot of messages thanking me or telling me that they were able to get a vaccine. I just saw another post that the medical center has shots available for today and yesterday. I'm very up to date on this stuff and I didn't even know they had shots available. We didn't get texts or anything in MyChart telling us. So, that long winded post was to say that I don't necessarily think we have too many shots (Walgreens has 25 available a day), just that they aren't getting in arms for all sorts of reasons. Welcome to the rural midwest I guess.

[MSWR0319]

Double post

[KpbS]

This is SO frustrating for me. My 18 yo works in a grocery store, my DH is 58. Both meet the criteria for vaccines, but there are NO appointments to be had in my state. We are solidly in the middle of vaccination rates for the US. Are these other places just not having as many people wanting to get vaccinated? Do they have more vaccines? A better system. I’m waiting on state level mass vaccination sites. There are no appointments anywhere at CVS or Walgreens.

Do you have local hospitals administering the vaccine? We have many pharmacies plus a large hospital system, a children’s hospital, and other dept of health clinics.