About 900,000 children under the age of 12 have already received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, the Biden administration said.
“By the end of the day today, we estimate that over 900,000 kids ages 5 through 11 will have gotten their first shot,” White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said at a briefing Wednesday, according to U.S. News & World Report. “And through pharmacies alone, 700,000 additional appointments are already on the calendar at local pharmacies. Parents and families across the country are breathing a sigh of relief, and we are just getting started.”
Zients said he expects the weekly rate of vaccination for the age group to be in excess of 900,000.
“The pace will be increasing across the next several days and across the next couple of weeks,” he said.
The 5-11 age group started inoculations last week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved the lower dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Pfizer gauges the vaccine at a 90% effective rate in the 5-11 age group, U.S. News & World Report.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn’t revised its vaccine data for the 5-11 age group to match numbers by the administration, as of Monday, the agency estimated that over 360,000 children in that population got their first shot.
