The Berrien County Health Department will start providing COVID-19 vaccines to children ages five to eleven on Monday. Emergency preparedness coordinator Brandon Vallee tells WSJM News the Pfizer shots have been determined safe for children. What should parents know?
“It has been thoroughly tested and approved by the CDC and the FDA,” Vallee said. “When they schedule their appointment for their child, there’s some paperwork that needs to be filled out and then their child will receive their vaccine after a short period of time.”
After the shot, the child will need to wait 15 minutes before leaving. Vallee says as soon as news broke about federal approval for the vaccine for kids, the health department started hearing from people. To sign up your child for a clinic, you can go to BCHDMI.org, the same place where you schedule an adult vaccine.
“If you look under the tab that says ‘Vaccine Information,’ there is a selection of dates where we are having kid-only clinics. So these vaccine clinics are for children between the age of five and eleven only.”
Vallee says the adult dosage and the child dosage of the Pfizer vaccine is different, so the department is holding separate clinics for the kids and the grownups. He notes several health departments in the region are gearing up for the child vaccinations starting Monday. You can find the vaccination registration page right here.
