CLEVELAND — There are about 28 million children ages 5 to 11 in the U.S. and soon all could be eligible for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. 

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the CDC committee that discusses vaccines, has it on their agenda Nov. 2-3 to weigh whether to allow the shots for 5 to 11-year-olds. If it does, the CDC director has the final say whether or not the shots should be given to that age group.

Doctors, like Kevin Turner, senior medical director of the Rainbow Primary Care Institute at University Hospitals, hope to have a decision soon. He said pediatricians’ offices all over are preparing to give the shot to younger kids. It’s still the same two-shot regimen issued three weeks apart, but it is a lower dose. 

“The current dosage for our 12 and up is a 30 microgram dose. And you're correct, for the younger kids, for anyone five to 11, the dose is 10 micrograms. So a third of that dose,” said Turner. 

An estimated 25,000 pediatricians’ offices will receive vials of the lower-dose vaccine. Turner said safety is a top priority when administering to this age group. To differentiate the doses, Pfizer has color-coded the vaccine vials. 

“The 12 and up vaccine has a light blue, purple color to its top, and the new vaccine has an orange top,” said Turner. “So that is one way that they're going to go ahead and help us to tell the difference.”

Turner said everything at University Hospitals’ pediatric offices will be color based. 

“We're going to have different colored stickers that each patient is going to have placed on them by their providers. And that'll allow people, our vaccinators, to go ahead and match the vaccine with that color on the patient,” said Turner. “It's kind of a double check for us. And then syringes will also be labeled with the same color so that we make sure that there's a color difference.”

Turner said University Hospitals has 40 Rainbow pediatric offices throughout northeast Ohio. They plan to administer the vaccine to kids ages five to 11 while continuing to administer the vaccine to kids ages 12 to 17.

The Pfizer vaccine is currently the only vaccine authorized for kids ages 12 to 17. Some offices, like Senders Pediatrics in South Euclid are taking extra precautions to make sure they don’t mess up the doses.

A newsletter sent out Oct. 28 states “Please note – we will NOT BE ABLE to vaccinate children ages 12 and older at the same time because the doses are different and we are unable to provide both at the same time. Children 12 years and older should continue to be scheduled through the online option at https://gettheshot.coronavirus.ohio.gov/. These appointments can be made on Thursday and Friday afternoons between 1:00 and 5:00 PM.”

Dr. Shelly Senders, the founder and CEO of Senders Pediatrics said they’re still offering vaccines for both age groups, they’re just doing them on different days and in different setups to avoid mistakes. 

Other precautions Senders Pediatrics is taking include having registered nurses to draw up the vial and monitoring people for 15 minutes to ensure they don't have any side effects. Senders Pediatrics plans to have a weekend vaccination clinic soon after the announcement comes from the CDC and said their age-appropriate patients will also be able to get their vaccine at well and ill visits. 

Should my child get the vaccine?

Senders said it really boils down to the idea of risk and benefit. Some parents focus on deaths, while others focus on illness. He said each parent has to make a decision about whether the concern about death is the only concern in which case, they would not vaccinate their children, or if the concern is about illness, some of which could be long lasting, in which case they would consider vaccinating their children. 

“I think we all agree that children do not die of COVID,” said Senders. “But we also know that it makes a lot of people really sick. And there were over 100 Kids in local hospitals, who were in ICUs, fighting for their lives with a COVID disease. So what happens to those kids? What's going to happen to the lungs of those kids? What's gonna happen to the brains of those kids? We don't know. But the data that we have in adolescents and adults suggest that there is some impact. And so I think it’s disingenuous to say that it doesn't have any impact.” 

Does the weight of my child matter?

“A lot of people have asked what about a big 11 year old? Should they get the 30 microgram dose? Or [a] small 12-year-old? Should they get the 10 microgram dose? And the answer is, with no other vaccine have we ever looked at weight. So when you get a meningitis vaccine, or a tetanus vaccine or a flu vaccine, we don't look at weight, we look at age. So if we give a meningitis vaccine to an 11 year old, we don't give it to a 10 year old, because they're under age, we don't look at their weight,” said Senders. 

The White House has said that the federal government has enough vaccine supply for the estimated 28 million children ages 5 to 11. Turner said scheduling will be a challenge and their offices are also already planning for evening and weekend clinics. 

“Once we get that final approval, we'll be able to decide and logistically figure out exactly how we want to do it,” said Turner. 

Turner said each office will handle the rollout differently, but are preparing to vaccinate the age group as quickly as they can. 

“We're excited that we're able to do it, we're excited that it's being done in a way that we can immunize, you know, all of these kids at once,” said Turner. “And our huge goal is just to keep them in school and keep them safe in school. So this is a huge group of kids that we are now able to work with and protect. And we're so excited.”

If the CDC recommends the Pfizer vaccine to the 5-to-11 age group, the vaccine could become available to the general public as soon as the first or second week of November.