LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Ahead of an expected announcement by the FDA to allow children ages 12-15 to get the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, Norton Healthcare is taking pre-registrations for vaccination appointments.

Doctors at Norton Healthcare said getting the COVID-19 vaccine shouldn’t be a difficult decision.  

“We have now seen the use of this vaccine in millions of people and it is extraordinarily safe,” Dr. Joseph Flynn said.

Pfizer is seeking emergency authorization for kids 12 to 15 years old to get the vaccine and data from the company shows it worked 100% of the time in 1,131 children who received the vaccine in a trial.

The FDA could approve the request as early as next week.  

“Vaccines are a really important tool for ending the pandemic,” Norton Healthcare Dr. Kris Bryant said.

Bryant said they’ve seen plenty of coronavirus outbreaks with teens in schools.

“And immunizing them is important in both protecting the kids and protecting others in the community,” Bryant said.

It’s true that kids and teens aren’t as at-risk for COVID-19 as older adults, but a small group will still need treatment at a hospital or deal with long-term symptoms.

“There’s no way to predict if your child is going to be one of those children,” Bryant said. “And so I think the safest thing to do for children is to protect them from getting infected.”

Getting more young people vaccinated will get us closer to normal, Flynn said.

“I don’t know about everybody but I’m tired of wearing a mask everyday and I think the quicker we can get to that point, the better off we’ll all be,” Flynn said. “And this is really a major, major point in our time.”

And if parents have questions, doctors will answer them, because they just want people to know the vaccines are safe and effective.

More information on pre-registrations for kids 12-15 can be found here. Anyone 16 and older is already eligible.