PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Now that the FDA has given the green light for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to be given to anyone 12 and older, some county-run clinics are permitting walkups.
Bucks and Montgomery counties are allowing parents with children 12 and older to walk up to county-run Pfizer clinics for shots.
Chester and Delaware counties, meanwhile, will wait until the CDC’s advisory committee gives the OK. Most independent pharmacies will also wait.
Eric’s Rx Shoppe in Horsham is working with several school districts, including Lower Merion. Co-owner Marc Ost said they filled hundreds of appointments within 10 to 15 minutes.
“It’s a good thing,” he said. “The more people that get vaccinated, the better.”
Skippack Pharmacy owner Dr. Mayank Amin — better known as Dr. Mak — said he’s hosting a Pfizer clinic for 12-and-ups on Sunday at North Penn High School. He plans to make it as welcoming as possible, unlike how he remembers shots when he was a kid.
“I was traumatized every time I saw the needle or I was watching the person draw up the syringe and then inject me,” he recalled. “At that point, I was trying to find the closest way to get out of that room. We don’t want that experience for the child.”
For many children, Amin said this could be the first vaccine they get outside of their pediatrician’s office. If parents have health concerns, talk to the child’s doctor first, he advised.
Dr. Darren Mareiniss, an emergency medicine physician at Einstein Medical Center, said there are a lot of myths and misinformation about the Pfizer vaccine. Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines are actually among the safest ever made.
“It is literally a blueprint for one protein. That’s it. That’s all it does,” he explained. “It doesn’t carry virus. It doesn’t go to your nucleus. It doesn’t interfere with DNA. It’s just a map of how to make one protein.”
He assured no corners were cut during the approval process when it comes to health and safety. The time it took to get the vaccines on the market was compressed simply to cut through red tape.
“Nothing was skipped in the safety research of the vaccine,” added Dr. David Mihalic, pharmacy director at Einstein Medical Center Montgomery. Companies shared research, he said, which significantly sped up the process.
“They did lift some regulations for like how long it takes to review a label, how long it takes to put a package to submit to the FDA together.”
Currently, only Pfizer’s vaccine is approved for people 12 and older. The Johnson & Johnson and Moderna vaccines are still approved only for people 18 and older.