Kid-size doses of COVID-19 vaccine should arrive next week, Tulsa Health Department says

Parents and guardians will be able to schedule appointments for their children ages 5 to 11 at a THD clinic once the vaccine arrives, with updates provided at vaccinate918.com and the Tulsa Health Department’s social media accounts, according to the agency’s media release Wednesday.

More than 300 local providers are eligible to administer COVID vaccines, according to the Health Department. Many pharmacies and doctors’ offices will begin offering the doses — a third of the size given to people ages 15 and older — when they receive supplies.

Dr. Dale Bratzler, the University of Oklahoma’s chief COVID officer, said the federal government’s emergency-use authorization for the Pfizer vaccine for ages 5 to 11 is welcome news for parents who are all too aware of the “substantial impact” the pandemic has had on classroom instruction.

“I completely agree that in-person learning is probably the best thing that we can do for our children, so the widespread disruption — I think it’s one of the compelling reasons to think about vaccinations so that we can move beyond this pandemic and have kids back in school without these disruptions that have occurred,” Bratzler said.

He noted that 1.9 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported among the 28 million children ages 5 to 11 in the U.S. He called that a “gross underestimation” of total children infected because they are less likely to exhibit symptoms and be tested.

In Oklahoma, he said, 34,713 children in that age group have tested positive.

Also in that demographic, he said, 8,300 children across the U.S. and at least 350 in Oklahoma have been hospitalized with COVID.

Dr. Shauna Lawlis, an adolescent medicine specialist at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital, recently enrolled her nearly 1-year-old son into Moderna’s COVID vaccine trials.

Lawlis said she worries about Rhys becoming infected because he is too young to wear a mask and there are still many unvaccinated people in Oklahoma.

“It’s been really hard having a kid during an international pandemic — hard to not take him out, not go places, try to avoid exposing him to people that might be sick,” Lawlis said. “Now that we’re seeing more kids get infected, I felt like it was really important to get him vaccinated as soon as I could.”

Lawlis said the trial is randomized and that she was told her son has a 75% chance of having received the vaccine rather than a placebo as part of the control group. Eventually the trial will be unblinded, she said, and then they will learn whether Rhys was vaccinated.

Rhys didn’t have any adverse reactions to the shot, and he calmed down quite quickly when he got snacks afterward, she said.

Lawlis said her father is in biotechnology, so she grew up hearing about clinical trials and development of medications.

She said the technology behind the mRNA vaccines has been in the works for decades because it has been built on previous science.

“Being a doctor and being around colleagues who have a lot of experience with it — and we read the papers on it and really understand it — it made a lot of sense to me,” Lawlis said. “I do trust it.”

Featured video: OU Health pediatric infectious disease doctor explains COVID vaccine for kids 5-11