Frustration mounts for parents trying to find COVID shots

More than 7 million people have received an updated COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, putting it on pace with last year’s campaign.

 

But many parents are finding availability is scattered, despite it being approved a month ago. 

 

The vaccines come in different packaging and different dose sizes depending on the brand, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) only recently said it’s OK to mix and match brands for young kids.

 

Some pharmacies also have age cutoffs, meaning a visit to a pediatrician is the only way to get a young child vaccinated.

 

The struggles and headaches come as the U.S. enters a fall respiratory virus season with new COVID-19 variants already circulating and reflects the fact that the federal government is no longer buying and distributing most of the vaccines. That task has instead been left to the private sector and the U.S. health system.

 

This year “should be a respiratory virus season where we have more protection than we’ve ever had,” said Sallie Permar, chairwoman of the department of pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. 

 

But instead, Permar said, “it is like a puzzle that we all have to solve on how to get it not only for ourselves, but also for our children. And those processes don’t often overlap.”

 

Alexis Young has been trying for weeks to schedule a COVID-19 vaccine for her 3-year-old son, who started school for the first time ever this year. 

 

Young lives in a semirural area outside of Olympia, Wash. She said her pediatrician doesn’t have any doses, and the only two chain pharmacies she was able to find appointments at were out of network in her state Medicaid plan. 

 

“Every pediatrician in town that I’ve called says, ‘I don’t know, we have some ordered,’ or, ‘We haven’t ordered them at all.’ … It’s been this long chain of phone calls going from place to place to figure out where I’m gonna get my kiddo boosted. And I still have no idea,” she said.

No Byline Policy

Editorial Guidelines

Corrections Policy

Source