### Title: The Quest for Pediatric COVID-19 Vaccines: Frustrations and Progress
**Introduction**
– The CDC recommended the updated COVID-19 vaccine for everyone aged 6 months and older, promising availability in most usual vaccination centers.
– Parents, especially those with young children, are growing increasingly frustrated as they struggle to find the vaccine.
– Public health officials claim improvements are underway, but parents, like Christina Sellers, are still waiting for their child’s vaccine.
**A Frustrating Search for Vaccines**
– Christina Sellers, an immunocompromised mother, experienced difficulty finding the updated COVID vaccine for her 4-year-old son during their move from Atlanta to Lansing, MI.
– She contacted multiple pharmacies, the health department, and her pediatrician’s office, but none had the vaccine for her son’s age group.
– Sellers persisted in her search even after moving and finally managed to schedule her child’s vaccine for October 20.
**Parent Advocacy for Vaccine Accessibility**
– Christina Sellers is a member of the Facebook group “Protect Their Future,” an advocacy group for access to childhood vaccines and other health services.
– The group, consisting of around 7,000 members, shares information and experiences about vaccine availability.
– Users on platforms like Twitter express frustrations about the CDC’s vaccine recommendations not aligning with actual availability.
**Obstacles and Solutions**
– Vaccine supply: Pediatric doses of the COVID-19 vaccine are gradually being shipped by Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna. Pfizer has already delivered over 1.5 million doses for children under 12.
– Mix and match: The CDC suggests using the same vaccine manufacturer for childhood vaccines, but Director Mandy Cohen stated that switching to a different manufacturer’s updated vaccine is acceptable.
– Pharmacy availability and age limits: Pharmacies can administer the vaccine to children ages 3 and older, but policies may vary. CVS allows appointments for children ages 5 and above, while those 18 months and older can receive the vaccine at CVS MinuteClinic.
– Doctors’ acceptance: Some pediatricians were initially hesitant to order the vaccine due to profit margins and unsure patient demand. Pfizer’s 100% return policy for wasted or expired vaccines is encouraging more pediatrician offices to order them.
**Efforts and Successes**
– Improved availability: The vaccine is gradually becoming more accessible, but some parents still struggle to find it for their children.
– Outdated information: Vaccination websites often have inaccurate or outdated information, leading to frustrating experiences for parents.
– Persistence pays off: Dedicated parents like Lynn Fingerhut and Fatima Khan managed to secure the vaccine for their children after making numerous calls and encountering setbacks.
**Conclusion**
– The journey to obtain pediatric COVID-19 vaccines has been filled with frustrations for parents seeking to protect their children.
– However, progress is being made, with increased vaccine supply, supportive return policies, and improved pediatrician acceptance.
– Although challenges remain, the commitment and persistence of parents and public health officials offer hope for a future where vaccines are readily available to all who need them.
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October 13, 2023: It has been a month since the CDC recommended the updated Vaccine for COVID-19 for everyone 6 months and older, and promised that vaccines would be “available later this week in most places you would normally go to get vaccinated.”
But since that Sept. 12 recommendation, legions of parents continue to seek the vaccine, especially for their youngest children, and are growing increasingly frustrated.
Public health officials say the situation is improving and will continue to do so. But that’s not comforting to parents like Christina Sellers. In late September, she was busy preparing for her family’s move from the Atlanta area to Lansing, MI. Anticipating movers coming in and out of the house, her to-do list included not only packing the usual bags, but also getting the updated COVID vaccine for herself, her husband, and her 4-year-old son. years. She is immunocompromised, so it is important to keep the entire family up to date on vaccines.
She and her husband received their vaccines before moving, but are still waiting for their son’s. While still in Atlanta, she contacted pharmacies, the health department and her pediatrician’s office. Nobody had it for her age group.
The day after the family arrived in Lansing, “I started calling CVS, Walgreen’s, Rite Aid, some independent pharmacies, the health department and the big health systems in the area,” he said. She was willing to drive 100 miles, which in Lansing usually takes about an hour and a half, she said.
Finally, Ingham County Public Health scheduled your child’s vaccine for October 20. “We got booked, but I’ve been trying to persist to see if I can get it sooner.”
The sellers’ story is not uncommon. She and 7,000 others belong to the Facebook group Protect Their Future, an advocacy group for access to childhood vaccines and other health services. Members post their efforts and share information about vaccine availability. In X, formerly known as Twitter, Users who can’t find the vaccine point out how many days it has been since the CDC recommended the 2023-2024 COVID vaccine and cite inaccurate or outdated information about availability on sites like Vaccines.gov.
The number of children under 18 with confirmed COVID-19 when they were admitted to a hospital increased nearly fivefold from mid-June to early September, from 237 to 1,175, an American Academy of Pediatrics analysis found. According to the CDC, more than half of children under 17 hospitalized with COVID have no underlying conditions.
Obstacles, Solutions
Public health officials and COVID vaccine makers have acknowledged obstacles, especially in getting the vaccine to younger children, but point to solutions that are in progress or in place.
Supplies: The adult vaccines were released first, but more pediatric doses are coming, said spokespeople for Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna, the two vaccines approved for children 6 months and older.
According to a Pfizer spokesperson, “Pfizer has shipped and delivered more than 18 million doses of its 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine, including more than 1.5 million pediatric doses for children under 12 years of age. We continue to meet wholesale demand and customers and We anticipate the delivery of millions of additional doses each week.”
A Moderna spokesperson said: “Our pediatric COVID vaccine is currently available and we have completed our shipments to the CDC, which is handling much of the distribution. “We also continue to ship to retail pharmacies and other points of care.” It did not immediately provide the number of pediatric doses shipped.
Mix and match: The CDC has said that, if possible, parents should continue using the same vaccine manufacturer for childhood vaccines, which can complicate finding the updated vaccine. However, in a City hall Presented by the American Academy of Pediatrics on October 4, CDC Director Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH, said that for children who completed the primary series with one manufacturer, “moving to an updated vaccine with a different one is perfectly fine.” good”.
Pharmacy availability and age limits: In August 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) allowed pharmacists in all states to administer COVID vaccines to children ages 3 and older to expand the availability of vaccination options.
In May, that declaration was modified, extending it until December 2024.
“Pharmacies in all states can administer the COVID-19 vaccine to people ages 3 and older,” an agency spokesperson said. COVID-19 vaccines for ages up to 2 years “should be administered in a provider’s office,” he said.
Still, policies vary from pharmacy to pharmacy regarding the ages at which vaccinations will take place. For example, pediatric COVID-19 vaccine appointments for children ages 5 and older can be scheduled online at CVS or through the CVS Pharmacy app, said spokesperson Matthew Blanchette. Those 18 months and older can receive the vaccine at CVS MinuteClinic, in-store clinics and schedule an appointment at Minuteclinic.com.
The reason: MinuteClinic locations have providers such as nurse practitioners, physician assistants and physician associates, as well as support staff with experience vaccinating younger children, she said.
It’s best to call ahead and verify any information online, including appointments, as parents in the Facebook group can attest after making appointments, go and tell them there is no vaccine for their child.
Doctors’ acceptance: As vaccine supplies became available and doctors now have to pay, some pediatricians were reluctant to order the vaccines, citing tight profit margins and uncertainty about how many of their patients would opt for the updated vaccine.
Now, Pfizer is allowing a 100% return policy, which is expected to result in more pediatrician offices ordering the vaccine, which comes in three-dose vials. In an email, a Pfizer spokesperson confirmed that “Pfizer has a 100% return policy for wasted or expired vaccines for children under 5 years of age and [buyers] You will receive the credit within 60 days after Pfizer receives the refund.”
Moderna’s pediatric COVID vaccine is supplied in single-dose vials, a spokesperson said, noting that pediatricians “have more precision when ordering and therefore there is less waste. Moderna allows a percentage of an order to be returnable.”
These policies seem to have helped.
“I have seen an increased willingness among pediatricians to request the vaccine,” said Pia Pannaraj, MD, MPH, professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego, and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases.
Efforts continue, sometimes success
For some parents, the improved availability can’t come soon enough.
“In our group, we have a lot of families right now clamoring to find out where they can find the vaccine,” said Fatima Khan, mother of 5- and 7-year-old children and co-founder of Protect Their Future. “We have had parents drive 2 hours to be told the vaccine is not available. [after making an appointment]. The really disturbing thing was that even last week we heard that people in Manhattan couldn’t find it.”
Khan, of Novi, Michigan, found the vaccine for her children but had to drive about an hour to get it.
The vaccine is sometimes difficult to find even for older children, and parents often report that the information on vaccine websites is outdated or completely inaccurate. After the pharmacy made an appointment and then canceled it because they were out of supply, Lynn Fingerhut of Peoria, Illinois, was able to get the updated vaccine for herself, her husband, and her 14-year-old son.
She had to make several phone calls to find the vaccine for her 10-year-old son. “I spent about 2 hours and 20 minutes on hold calls on Tuesday alone,” she said. She has a home sales job and a dog walking business, and often multitasks during walks, staying on hold for long periods of time.
Finally, he found gold. The Kroger pharmacy in East Peoria told her she could come in this week. She did it on Thursday and her son received the vaccine.
Sellers, the mother of the unvaccinated 4-year-old, is a nurse practitioner and hopes to achieve similar success. “If I could get the shot, I would hit my own son.”
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