About 900,000 American children between the ages of 5 and 11 have received the first dose of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine since the campaign for this age group was launched a week ago.
It’s “a good start,” said White House pandemic coordinator Jeff Zients, announcing the figures at his weekly press conference on Wednesday.
Zients anticipated an acceleration in the immunization rate in the coming weeks.
Some 28 million children between the ages of 5 and 11 live in the United States.
About “700,000 more appointments have already been scheduled” in pharmacies, he added.
The vaccines can also be administered by some pediatricians, in children’s hospitals or in new places specially enabled for this new campaign.
A total of about 20,000 vaccination sites for children are planned, Zients said.
The vaccine is given in two doses, three weeks apart, but each dose has been adjusted to 10 micrograms per injection, compared to 30 micrograms for the older age groups.
“Even if children are more resistant to this virus than adults, they are still at risk,” said Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the nation’s main federal health agency.
He recalled that the United States still registers an average of 73,000 new cases of covid-19 and around 1,000 deaths per day.
