Georgia Among First US States To Provide COVID-19 Vaccine to Children Ages Below 16

The state of Georgia made COVID-19 vaccines accessible to children as young as 12 on Tuesday. Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine has been provided to teenagers aged 12 to 15 in Georgia, Arkansas, and Delaware, just a day after US regulators approved it for emergency use in that age group.

Georgia starts giving COVID-19 vaccine to young teens

In most of the United States, young people approached by Reuters will have to wait until later in the week to be vaccinated. According to a spokesperson for Georgia's public health agency, the decision to send the COVID-19 vaccine straight away was made to prevent driving away young people and risking them not returning for the first of the two shots in the two-shot regimen. A spokesperson for Delaware said the state began early to meet the need for shots from young people and their parents, Reuters via MSN reported.

Reuters surveyed more than a dozen states, including Texas, New York, Idaho, Arizona, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Illinois, and they said they would wait for approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) advisory committee before starting to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to children under the age of 16. Minnesota officials are authorized to administer a vaccine as soon as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves it.

Like most other nations, the US will await recommendations from a CDC committee, which will most certainly provide specifics on proper dosing and possible safety issues, as per a spokesperson. The committee will meet on Wednesday, and states will start immunizing children as early as Wednesday or Thursday.

The vaccination of a large number of teenage Americans could cause schools and summer camps in the United States to ease the masking and social-distancing steps suggested by the CDC, hastening a return to something resembling normalcy. Individuals who receive the two-dose Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine take approximately five weeks from the moment they receive the first dosage to attaining maximum safety.

It has been open to individuals as young as 16 in the United States under an emergency use authorization. Last week, the firms announced that they had begun obtaining full clearance for their vaccine in adults aged 16 and over.

The majority of COVID-19 vaccines have been approved for use in adults worldwide. Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine is used in many nations by teenagers as young as 16, and Canada was the first to extend its service to children aged 12 and up. Parents, education leaders, and public health authorities in other parts of the country have been waiting for the shot to be made accessible to more children, as per SFGate.

The vaccine's use in the 12-15 age range will not be officially approved until at least Wednesday when a CDC committee meets. But, local governments who started offering shots right away saw the FDA's decision on Monday as enough approval to begin the procedure.

How many COVID-19 vaccines Georgia received?

As of May 9, Georgia received a total of 9,921,025 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Per 24/7 Wall via MSN, Georgia earned 93,441.0 vaccines per 100,000 people after population adjustment, which is less than the national average of 100,488.8 vaccines per 100,000 Americans and the 15th fewest of any state.

Although Georgia has earned fewer vaccines per capita than the rest of the country, it has a vaccination demand comparable to the rest of the US. Georgia had 10,415.5 confirmed COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents as of May 9, matching the national average of 9,813.2 cases per 100,000 Americans and ranking 22nd out of 50 states.

Although the federal government distributes vaccinations to states, it is up to each state to distribute them, resulting in discrepancies in the number of vaccines provided and the population vaccinated. Georgia citizens had received 68.5 percent of allotted vaccines, which is smaller than the national average of 78.7 percent and the third-lowest proportion of all states. Vaccines are given to 64.0 percent of the state's population, which is smaller than the nationwide average of 79.1 percent and the eighth-lowest proportion of all states.