UPMC schedules 10K covid vaccinations for children in 1st day

Across the health system, UPMC scheduled 10,000 covid vaccination appointments for children in the 5 to 11 age group during the first 24 hours after they became available, officials said Friday.

Dr. Alejandro Hoberman, president of UPMC Children’s Community Pediatrics, said a majority of those vaccines will be given in the health system’s pediatric offices, as that is what is most familiar and comfortable for children and their parents.

He urged parents with questions and concerns about any aspect of the vaccine – or any vaccine – to talk to their pediatricians.

Kid-sized doses of the Pfizer vaccine were approved for children 5 to 11 years old by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday. The vaccine is one-third the dose of Pfizer’s vaccine for adults and older children, and it requires two shots spaced 21 days apart. Hoberman said it is the lowest dose possible while still providing kids with protection.

Hoberman said around 750 children have died from the virus since the pandemic began – four times as many that have died in any influenza epidemic of the past two decades.

“Some may say the rates are low, but in my eyes, it is 750 too many,” he said. “Each one was a child who lost a long future and who left behind those who loved them.”

Covid-19, he said, is now largely a vaccine preventable disease for children, like measles and polio.

“It provides instructions for training for their bodies to recognize the virus and help the body mitigate or eliminate it,” Hoberman said of the vaccine. “It trains the body and then it’s gone. The vaccine does not stick around.”

As pediatricians and pharmacies continue to vaccinate children, UPMC doctors are also setting their sights on another under-vaccinated population: women who are pregnant.

Only around one-third of pregnant women both locally and across the country have opted for the covid-19 vaccine, something doctors said has led to some mothers dying and others left too ill to see their newborns for weeks after birth.

“These are healthy young women otherwise ecstatic to be pregnant – women beaming with joy at the thought of becoming mothers who are sometimes becoming critically ill with covid-19,” said Dr. Richard Beigi, an obstetrician and president of UPMC-Magee Womens Hospital in Oakland.

“This does not need to be this way,” he said, nothing that data has shown that people who are pregnant are at a higher than average risk for severe covid-related outcomes. “Some mothers have unfortunately lost their lives, and others were so sick around the time of delivery, they have not been able to see their newborn for weeks.”

A vaccine clinic for people who are pregnant is scheduled from 2 to 5 p.m. Nov. 17 at UPMC Magee. Officials said walk-ins are welcome.

Beigi said he understands the pause such a decision can give pregnant women, saying they’re appropriately concerned about their health and their unborn infant’s health.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “there is a focus more on the theoretical risk rather than the real risk of disease.”