ACIP Approves COVID Vaccine for Children Aged 5-11

Today, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) approved the use of a COVID Vaccine for Children aged 5-11. This follows the recently announced approval by the FDA. Read about it here.

Now vaccine manufacturers and state agencies may begin to ship the vaccines to medical offices. Governor Pritzker has recommended patients get the vaccine from their pediatrician, and we are doing all we can to be able to provide that to our patients. We are working closely with the State of Illinois and the Lake County Health Department on securing vaccine supplies.

We’re hoping it will be quick, but at this time, we do not have a timeframe….for either how quickly the state can send out vaccines or how long shipping will take. We also do not know how many doses we will receive in the first few shipments and we ask your patience in the coming weeks. According to a recent NBC article, the State of Illinois has initially secured “306,000 doses for kids 5-11, with an additional 73,000 doses for the city of Chicago and more than 100,000 headed to federal government pharmacy partners”.

 

The process at Lake Forest Pediatric Associates will work as follows:

1. Parents/guardians will submit a short form to request 1 appointment online (and will make their 2nd dose appointment while in the office at their 1st vaccination) here: https://lakeforestpediatrics.com/covid-vaccine-appointments/.

2. Parents/guardians will be allowed to input multiple sibling names in the same appointment request (no need to make multiple appointment requests for each individual child).

3. Once the request has been submitted, it will be time-stamped in our system for a return call from our Front Desk personnel.

 

* PLEASE NOTE:

When you submit the request form and see the following message,

“Thank You for your form submission. We will contact you as soon as we are able in order to schedule your vaccine appointment”,

your vaccine appointment request has been received by our system. This is your confirmation that your appointment request has been received.

Please be patient and wait for a team member to give you a call to set up your child’s/children’s appointment. Please do not call the office – we have received your appointment request and we will call you when an appointment is available.

 

4. Our Front Desk personnel will call you. Appointments will be made in the order in which the appointment request was received and based on our expected vaccine supply.

For more answers to your Frequently Asked Questions about the COVID vaccine for kids under 12, see this article from Lurie Children’s.