Cuyahoga County set to administer Pfizer vaccines to children 5-11 next week, if approved

Amirah, 7, receives an injection of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. The hospital was one of the U.S. sites where Pfizer conducted Phase 1 of its pediatric trials to evaluate the vaccine in children age 6 months to 11 years old. (Courtesy Cincinnati Children’s Hospital)
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CLEVELAND, OH – Children’s doses of a coronavirus vaccine are expected to arrive in Cuyahoga County by the end of this week and could be administered to youth ages 5 to 11 next week, pending approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, county health officials said Wednesday.

The Pfizer vaccine, which has been cut to one-third of the adult dose for children under 12, was recommended to the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization on Tuesday and is expected to be approved in the coming days. It will then go to the CDC early next week for final approval.

If it passes, providers could begin administering them immediately.

“I know at UH we have everything ready to go, just ready to open up the channels for getting people scheduled and into the offices when we have the green light,” Dr. Claudia Hoyen, Director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, said during a media briefing Wednesday.

Clinical trials showed the vaccine protected children well against symptomatic infection. But at a lower dose, officials hope it will cause fewer side-effects.

One potential risk of the vaccine, Dr. Hoyen said, could be myocarditis, an inflammatory heart condition that has been more common among young men who received Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. But even then, she said the benefits of the vaccine outweigh any risks.

“I would still recommend for any child that they get the vaccine,” Dr. Hoyen said.

Officials with the Cuyahoga County Board of Health said they will be organizing youth-only clinics in November and December, if the vaccine is approved. Details will be provided when available.

The news comes amid a declining trendline in COVID-19 cases, which Health Commissioner Terry Allan said is expected to continue through December. But he warned that Cuyahoga County remains over three times the CDC’s threshold for high transmission, and critical care beds in area hospitals are at 80 percent occupancy.

“Getting both that COVID and flu vaccine will also help not only to protect you and your family but to protect our hospital capacity to care for everybody who needs help,” Allan said.

Ohio reported 3,839 new cases in the last 24 hours, below the 21-day average of 4,097. Hospitalizations and ICU admissions also were down, according to the state’s dashboard.

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