Biden urges parents to get their kids vaccinated for Covid
WASHINGTON, DC -- President Joe Biden called the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's authorization of the Covid-19 vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11 "a giant step forward to further accelerate our path out of this pandemic," saying Wednesday that it's "a day of relief and celebration" for parents around the country.
"The bottom line is: We've been planning and preparing for months to vaccinate our children. Our program will be ramping up this week and more doses (will be) shipped out each day so that we have it fully up and running by next week," Biden said during remarks at the White House Wednesday afternoon.
"We're going to do everything we can to make these vaccines easily available and raise awareness of the importance of getting vaccinated. So parents of children ages 5 and over: please get them vaccinated," he continued.
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On Tuesday night, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky endorsed a recommendation for vaccinating children ages 5-11 against Covid-19, clearing the way for immediate vaccination of the youngest age group yet in the United States. The recommendation expands to include about 28 million children in the United States, according to the CDC.
The President said the authorization marks "a turning point in our battle against Covid-19" and "a major step forward for our nation in our fight to defeat the virus."
Earlier Wednesday, the White House outlined how the Biden administration is ramping up the vaccination program for children.
"Following the FDA's authorization last Friday, teams immediately began packing vaccines specifically formulated for kids ages 5-11 into specialized containers and they've been working 24/7 to ship millions of doses to thousands of vaccination sites across the country," White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said.
Zients said that starting next week, the vaccination program for children will be fully up and running with about 20,000 "trusted and convenient locations" available for parents to get their kids vaccinated including pediatricians, family doctors, pharmacies, community health centers and children's hospitals. Some of those locations have already started scheduling vaccine appointments for children and others, including CVS and Walgreens, will open scheduling systems on Wednesday.
He also said that by the end of the week, parents and guardians can go to vaccines.gov to search for locations near them offering vaccinations for kids ages 5-11.
