The CDC is beginning emergency use authorization for COVID vaccines in children age 5 to 11

CDC approval of COVID vaccines for kids aged 5 to 11 is the latest move to help fight the “spread” of COVID. We talked about the impact of getting this age-group vaccinated with former State Health Director Will Humble, who is now the Executive Director of the Arizona Public Health Association.

These vaccines for children are “authorized which means it’s under emergency use authorization. It means the clinical trials are complete, in fact they did a longer clinical trial period than they were initially going to do just to make sure that they were capturing enough of a data set both in time and number of kids during that clinical trial and it all turned out really well,” Humble said.

He continued that the vaccine is authorized which is different than “approval” and it’s actually been delivered to a few sites already in Arizona.

These vaccines, for those that pre-ordered, have been shipped and many of the needles and kits have been brought to sites in the area.

Two organizations, the FDA advisory committee as well as the CDC advisory committee have analyzed these vaccines and they have authorized them for emergency use.

“The number one thing for parents to do is to call their pediatrician, their regular care-provider for their kids, and find out if they had pre-ordered vaccines and if they have it available. That’s always the best place to go, is the medical home for kids,” Humble said.

He said this would be a great place to go, “because a lot of kids missed regular shots…the regular pediatric series vaccines during the pandemic because they’ve missed pediatric appointments, so this is a good opportunity to get kids in, get them caught up on things that they have been missing over the last couple years.”

Humble also shared that it is safe for a child to receive the COVID vaccine along with the flu shot and/or other pediatric vaccines.