Less than two weeks into the effort to vaccinate children between the ages of 5 and 11, the White House is seeing encouraging uptake statistics for this youngest cohort, according to internal Biden administration figures shared with Yahoo News, with more than 2.5 million already partially vaccinated.
“At least 2.6 million children are on their way to being protected from COVID-19, thanks to the president’s efforts to prepare an entirely new infrastructure to reach parents and their children where they are with vaccines,” a White House official told Yahoo News. “With our kids’ program just hitting full strength 10 days ago, we are already seeing that our effective rollout is helping parents and families across the country breathe giant sighs of relief.”
If the current pace holds for the rest of the week, and all the children who have received their first dose of the vaccine also receive their second (childhood dosing calls for three-week spacing, as is the case with adults), as many as 3 million young early adapters could be fully vaccinated by Christmas Eve. Individuals are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after the second dose, as that period gives the immune system sufficient time to develop antibodies against the coronavirus, according to public health officials.
That could be a monumental gift for family holiday gatherings in late December, though too late to make for an entirely worry-free Thanksgiving. The 2020 holiday season aligned with only the earliest vaccine distribution efforts, meaning that much of the anxiety about traveling and gathering with others remained in place for many Americans