Granite State Times

New Hampshire has started preparations to roll out pediatric vaccines with hopes that children can start receiving them within the week.

The organization New Futures, a nonprofit advocating for the health and wellness of all Granite Staters, took to Twitter to announce that the vaccine would soon be widely available.

“The pediatric COVID-19 vaccine is now recommended by the CDC for children 5-11 years old. The vaccine will be available across the state at a variety of locations, from pharmacies to schools to doctors' offices,” New Futures tweeted Nov. 3.

President Joe Biden’s administration has gone on record saying that Pfizer is packing and shipping 15 million doses of the pediatric vaccines to states and providers, according to the Laconia Daily Sun.

The vaccines are recommended by an independent advisory panel of the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which unanimously endorsed the vaccine, in smaller doses, for children from 5 to 11 years old.

The number of children who are eligible to be vaccinated in New Hampshire is about 125,000, according to the Laconia Daily Sun.

Gov. Chris Sununu (R) said the state had preordered 15,000 doses and expects to be able to offer the vaccines within days. Sununu added that as soon as the approval is granted, pharmacies would be ready to administer the doses.  

“Some may take a week or two to get their final shipments in,” he said, according to a transcript of his press conference. “But we will have a lot of availability for parents, if they so choose to make that choice for their kids to get them vaccinated. And again, to sign up... you can go directly to vaccines.gov to see if your local pharmacy is offering pediatric appointments. But it's important to note that the White House, during our call, was very careful to ask folks just to be patient while this new national program for kids really does ramp up.”

Pfizer has said that the kid-sized vaccine doses (about one-third of an adult dose) are 91% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19. Side effects in the trials among children were relatively minor, according to the Food and Drug Administration.