As Covid-19 cases rise, health departments set up vaccination clinics for young children

"I'm a pediatrician. I'm celebrating this," Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein said. "We are busy organizing clinics to make sure that we have access to everybody in the community who decides not to go to their pediatrician to get that vaccine. We just want to make it easy for people."

The new vaccination campaign for younger children is rolling out as counties are witnessing a serious upturn in Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations.

Erie County received 2,000 pediatric doses of the Pfizer vaccine Tuesday morning that will be distributed at a county clinic in conjunction with Oishei Children's Hospital on Saturday.

The vaccine for younger children – which is one-third the amount of the regular vaccine for children 12 and older – isn't equally available to all areas just yet.

Niagara County Public Health Director Daniel J. Stapleton said the vaccine for children is not in great supply, and the most his county could order was 300 doses. He said the county has been requesting the pediatric vaccine for weeks.

"I’m used to doing clinics where I’m doing 3,000," he said. "We can do this, we know how to do it, we’ve got the plans, but we need the vaccine."

He said the county probably will open registration for its doses by the end of this week and start giving the shots next week. Pediatricians and pharmacies will be getting supplies as well, as long as they ordered it through the state, Stapleton said.

“There are some things under our control," he said. "The amount of vaccine available is not, so we’re just trying to do the best with what we have available."

Erie County's first pediatric vaccination clinic will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Children's Hospital. Those interested in getting their children ages 5 to 11 vaccinated should call the county's Covid-19 hotline, 858-2929. The county also expects to have a link to register online soon. Adults interested in getting vaccinated or vaccinating their older children can also call that number for other clinic locations or visit erie.gov/vax.

After Saturday, the county plans to schedule more pediatric vaccination clinics on future Saturdays, including Nov. 13 and Nov. 20 in the Northtowns, Southtowns and city locations. Those locations and times were not yet finalized Wednesday.

Unlike Niagara County, Burstein said Erie County has not yet experienced issues with pediatric vaccine delivery.

"The CDC just made their recommendations yesterday, and we received our doses today, so that couldn't be faster," she said. "We put in another order for about 1,200, so I haven't heard back about that shipment."

There may be a temporary bottleneck, Burstein said, but the U.S. has ordered sufficient pediatric vaccine amounts.

"It's there," she said. "We just have to wait and see how fast that they can ship it."

Overall, positive Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations have taken a bad upward turn in Erie County. Positive Covid-19 cases had been falling for two weeks in a row, and hospitalizations had been fairly stable for several weeks. But that has changed over the past week.

Confirmed cases from last week to the week before have shot up 27%. Recent hospitalizations and intensive care unit cases also point to what may be the start of a new surge for already overburdened hospitals, validating concerns that cases may continue to rise as the weather turns colder.

Buffalo News staff reporter Barbara O'Brien contributed to this story.