By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – Friday morning’s Covid briefing focused largely on the pandemic’s recent effect on local kids, and we got some new information about when they may be able to start vaccinating children under 16.
County Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry said the recent surge in cases here have largely been traced to 3 large gatherings last month, and those cases have further spread to a number children.
“There have been four daycares affected. We have seen cases at three schools. At this point, we have not seen transmission within the school’s. I think it is an important reminder that throughout this response we’ve not had a single case of transmission in our schools. But daycares are a little bit of a different story, because young children can’t wear a mask and they get very close together. And so, it is a really important time to remember that those of us who have children in daycare, it is incredibly important for us to minimize the risk in the rest of our life. So that means all the adults related to that child need to get vaccinated.”
Dr. Berry also talked about the latest news on vaccines for children and when that might happen.
“We are looking towards the approval of Pfizer for kids 12 and up in the next week or two. We are very hopeful that we’ll be able to vaccinate all kids 12 and up in the next couple weeks. We are likely to get approval of Pfizer for 5 and up sometime this summer, which means likely, going into the fall, we can have all of our school-aged kids eligible for vaccination. And we will plan to make sure the vaccine is available to all school aged kids before the fall. Because if we can get enough kids vaccinated before the fall, they can all get back to school as normal, which I think we would all really like to see.”