Kids can get COVID vaccine in Sarasota starting Monday

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) - Pfizer vaccines for children ages 5-11 will be available in Sarasota beginning Monday, Nov. 15, the state Department of Health has announced.

The vaccine will be available at both the downtown Sarasota location, at 2200 Ringling Blvd., as well as the North Port location, at 6950 Outreach Way.

About 28 million nationwide kids ages 5 to 11 are newly eligible for shots now that the Pfizer vaccine has been is approved for the age group. The White House says the federal government has procured enough of the two-dose vaccine for all of them.

A Pfizer study of 2,268 children found the vaccine was almost 91% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 infections. The Food and Drug Administration studied the shots in 3,100 vaccinated kids in concluding the shots are safe.

While kids are less likely than adults to develop severe COVID-19, with the delta variant they get infected and transmit “just as readily as adults do,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases expert, told a recent White House briefing.

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, at least 94 children ages 5 to 11 have died from COVID-19, more than 8,300 have been hospitalized and more than 5,000 have developed a serious inflammatory condition linked to the virus.

-- Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.