The Walz administration and local school leaders are encouraging families to have their 5-11 year old kids vaccinated against COVID-19.
The childrens' version of the Pfizer vaccine has already started arriving in the state after being approved by the FDA and CDC earlier this week. It's available at pharmacies and clinics and now, some schools, like Brooklyn Center elementary.
“Our parents are taking advantage of this,” Governor Walz said Thursday. “I am grateful to those parents for protecting not only their own children, but protecting their neighbor’s children, their neighbors and the rest of our community.”
Brooklyn Center schools Superintendent Dr. Carly Baker says school is a trusted, safe, and appropriate place where kids, most of whom don't exactly like shots, feel safe.
“To the governor's point about our young people taking charge, I was standing at the door earlier here at the elementary and a young man came through coming from recess,” explains Baker. “He had his mask down a bit and I said ‘mask up little man’, and he goes, ‘I know’ and he pulled his mask up. And then he turned around and said, ‘I'm getting my vaccine today’. It was just such a heartwarming exchange and that is absolutely true. Our littles are taking control and they know what they want.”
The St. Paul School District also rolled out its school vaccination plan Thursday.
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The district's director of Health and Wellness Mary Langworthy says vaccinating during the school day makes sense for a lot of families with younger kids.
“For many of our families it's an opportunity for us to improve access to the vaccine,” says Langworthy. “Especially for our families that don't have a regular clinic, don't have transportation, are really truly unaware of where to go. Offering the vaccine within our schools is a local and familiar option for families to be able to bring their Children.”
State Education Department officials say parents need to give their consent for their child to receive a COVID shot at school, and are encouraged to be with their child when the shot is given.
While the focus is on schools in Minnesota, University of Minnesota Infectious Disease Director Dr. Michael Osterholm says unfortunately there's lingering and unfounded doubt about giving the vaccine to kids. He told WCCO's Chad Hartman he's not optimistic that enough families will do it.
“If you look at the data right now, we see about a third of parents of 5-11 year olds saying they can't wait to get their kids vaccinated,” Osterholm says. “These are the people right now that are trying so hard to get in quickly. We have about a third of the parents that are saying, well you know, I'm going to wait. I just want to get more information. I want to see that. And then we have a third of the parents that are saying absolutely no way under any conditions will my kids get vaccinated. I worry that we're going to come into the holidays and we'll still probably have less than 40% of the kids in that age group vaccinated.”
Osterholm also says that those that think COVID doesn’t affect children are incorrect.
“Just remember, in this particular disease I keep hearing this over and this is a mild disease in kids,” Osterholm told WCCO. “This is simply not true.”
Osterholm says since the vaccine was made available to older kids in the 12 to 17 year old age range, only about 50% have taken advantage of it so far nationwide.
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