Sarasota-Manatee pediatricians, parents get ready for expanded child COVID vaccination

Sarasota and Manatee doctors and parents are already preparing for the potential rollout of COVID-19 vaccines for 5-to-11-year-old children. 

In early October, Pfizer and BioNTech asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization for their COVID-19 vaccine for 5-to-11-year-olds. The dosage would be one-third the amount given to adults. The vaccine is currently authorized for anyone 12 and up. The FDA’s vaccine committee is scheduled to meet on the issue next week. 

Local pediatrician Dr. Carola Fleener, who runs the Sarasota Children’s Clinic, said her practice will start vaccinating children as soon as possible.

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“We’re going to go ahead and vaccinate the 5-to-11-year-olds from the minute it is authorized,” she said. “We will send a blast out by text ... and let all of our patients know.” 

Fleener recently met with officials from the Sarasota health department to discuss implementation details. They walked through what transport, administration, and recording patients’ shots in the Florida Shots system will look like. 

But much remains up in the air. One question is how many parents will want to vaccinate their children if Pfizer is authorized. Fleener hears a range of answers from parents at her practice.

“There are some patients who see the value of the vaccines in protecting their children, and they’re going to be standing at my front door the day that it’s authorized,” she said. “Lately, we’ve been having a lot of patients who are non-vaccinators, and so I expect that they, of course, will not really want a vaccine for COVID-19 either.”

In recent weeks, she’s seen a “large number” of patients test positive for COVID-19. They come in with minor symptoms – maybe a runny nose or a mild cough – but have the virus. In the vast majority of cases, most patients do “very well,” she said. 

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Mike and April Barrett have an eight- and ten-year-old child in school in Manatee County. When asked what made them want to vaccinate their children, they said it wasn’t even a decision.

“I think we’re both very rational, ‘Show me the data’ kind of people,” said Mike Barrett. “It’s very clear that the greater risk is in not vaccinating. That’s kind of how we looked at it.”

The couple doesn’t have a preference on where their child gets vaccinated. In fact, they said, going to the pediatrician would be “the last on the list,” because they don’t anticipate it being as fast as a pharmacy or the health department.

“I think we would just pick wherever we could get it sooner,” said April Barrett.

So will the Barretts take into account the vaccination status of their children’s friends when the rollout begins? They say they’ll handle it the way they’ve been so far – taking different precautions based on the vaccination status of people around them. 

“Our circle stays pretty small, and we would be asking about the vaccine,” said April Barrett. “At the same time, once we’re all vaccinated in the family, we’ll kind of loosen up a bit. At that point, we’ve done everything we can do, and we will continue to wear masks and protect others.” 

This story comes from Aspirations Journalism, an initiative of The Patterson Foundation and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune to inform, inspire and engage the community to take action on issues related to COVID-19 Response.