On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration gave emergency use authorization of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines for children as young as six months old. Then on Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted unanimously to sign off on the FDA’s decision.
Regarding when the vaccines will be available in Mississippi for those five and under, we sat down with Dr. Geri Weiland on Monday to get an update.
“The mechanism is not going to be there until this week to get the six-month to five-year version, but we will be ordering it,” Weiland explained during an appearance on The Gallo Show. Upon ordering, some doctors’ offices, community health departments, and pharmacies should have the vaccines in stock and ready to give out as early as next week.
Weiland also added that any parents concerned about getting their children vaccinated should not be.
“I hope that parents will understand that it is helpful to protect their children,” she said. “We know COVID is still out there, it’s still causing disease.”
In fact, Mississippi is seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant. The state saw an average of 1,104 cases per day over the past week. That’s a 72% increase from two weeks ago.
