May 10th, 2021
The FDA’s approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is a significant step that will further protect the public health of our community and expedite our COVID-19 vaccination efforts. This expansion will add thousands of more residents to the eligibility list, and reaches a subset of our community that has experienced a recent increase in COVID-19 positive cases.
The Monroe County vaccination team and the Department of Public Health have been planning for this expected expansion for several days now, and are finalizing plans to begin vaccinating 12 to 15 year old residents as soon as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) concludes its meeting later this week. Once finalized, all Monroe County-operated vaccination locations that offer the Pfizer vaccine will be accepting residents 12 to 15 years of age with parental or guardian consent.
The timing of this approved expansion could not be more perfect as Monroe County shifts our vaccination efforts to more localized, neighborhood clinics, many of which are in our schools. We want to encourage all parents and guardians to contact their child’s pediatrician to discuss the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine and the process by which it has been approved. We are certainly encouraged by this news and hope that this brings new optimism to finally ending the COVID-19 pandemic.
