Colorado Schools Help Teens Get COVID Vaccine

When Aurora’s Rangeview High School Social Justice Club held a COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic for fellow students earlier this month, half of the 422 people on the shot regained some with their new qualifications. They were teenagers who wanted to have their normal life.

Many of the rest were families, and their children helped overcome the barriers that prevented them.

“The clinic in Rangeview builds that credibility,” said Yeabsera Fitsum, a junior and member of the club. “It’s happening in a place we all know and love.”

This week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention opened the vaccine eligibility to children aged 12 to 15 and paved the way for most middle and high school students to be vaccinated with COVID-19. Children in that age group promoted an increase in cases in April, Corresponding increase in school outbreaks and quarantine.. Immunization of more children is the key to more normal school education and more normal social life, school officials and doctors said.

Teresa Myers, a spokesman for the Greeley Evans School District, said: “We want more students to be vaccinated in the fall so that we can reduce these confusions.”

As of Thursday, eligible children can be vaccinated wherever they provide Pfizer vaccine, but with parental permission. Polls show that 30% to 50% of parents plan to vaccinate their children as soon as possible, but others are more cautious. So far, schools from kindergarten to high school do not need vaccines, but the number of universities continues to grow.

During the last few weeks of a confused school year, some districts partner with healthcare providers and community groups to run clinics, especially for students.

Denver Public Schools have partnered with Denver Health to provide vaccines at 18 school-based health centers.Jeffco Public School Vaccine more than 1,100 students at a recent drive-up clinic We plan to provide some more. For some students, their second shot falls on graduation day.

Through a partnership with Sunrise Health, Greeley-Evans is helping 900 students vaccinate and working with the Latin American Integration Association in Weld County to establish more school-based clinics.

Deb Sniga of the Latin American Integration Association in Weld County, who works with school districts and community groups in northern Colorado, said:

The Roaring Folk School District operates a high school clinic and will soon provide a junior high school clinic. The teachers there also prepared lessons to help students understand vaccine science and tackle common myths. This was also done by the Range View teacher.

Vaccines will be much more widely available than earlier this year, and more clinics may start stocking COVID vaccines this summer. Rather than organizing their own clinics, some districts send their families information about community-based vaccination opportunities.

However, school-based health centers and school pop-up clinics have many advantages. Many parents consider school to be a reliable place for adults to care for their children. At a more practical level, they know where to go and where to park. Initiating vaccination of teens also had the unexpected but welcome side effect of attracting their relatives.

Dr. Sonja O’Leary, pediatrician and medical director at the Denver Health School-based Health Center, said: “We saw a dad who was fooled by the children. We also vaccinated an 83 year old grandma. The children decided that this was the right thing for them, and then they gave the family. I’ll bring you. “

It was the experience of Joshua Alvarez, another member of Rangeview’s Social Justice Club. His aunt, an Ecuadorian immigrant, wasn’t sure she wanted the vaccine until she saw him also vaccinated.

“I told her I was doing it in Range View, and I was doing it, my cousin was doing it, and she might do that too. I just made it easier to say, “I just get vaccinated,” he said.

Similarly, Yeabsera said vaccination opened the door to conversations with older Ethiopian relatives. They started asking all the questions in their native language.

Some of their peers are also asking questions about vaccine safety and performance. According to Joshua, the most common question was whether one could be confident that the vaccine would be safe given how quickly the vaccine was developed. He points out that the development of the vaccine involved some of the world’s top scientists working together in unprecedented efforts.

O’Leary is also asking this question from his parents. She explains that mRNA technology has been around for years and has been applied to other vaccines. She is excited to provide the vaccine a year after her children lost a lot.

“The impact on children is devastating in terms of increased chronic absenteeism, worsening mental health, and their educational achievement,” she said. “For me, being able to vaccinate people over the age of 12 is very exciting in that it can bring everyone back. It’s a game changer.”

Dr. Sean O’Leary (and Sonya O’Leary’s husband), a pediatrician at the Colorado Children’s Hospital and vice chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Infectious Diseases Commission, wonders why children should be vaccinated. He said there are also. Re-at lower risk.

He said there are many reasons, from keeping community infections low to returning to normal social activity and avoiding quarantine.

But the most important thing is the children’s own health. He said that even with masking, quarantine, and school closures, more children die of COVID than they die of influenza in normal years.

“It’s more serious in the elderly, but it’s a mistake to say it’s benign for children,” O’Leary said. “We have taken care of many very sick children, but unfortunately some have died.”

Parents who have questions about the safety of the vaccine may find it more comfortable to get the vaccine from a regular doctor, Sean O’Leary said.

So far, the Pfizer vaccine, which has strict refrigeration requirements, is the only vaccine approved for people under the age of 18. Pfizer ships in large packs of 1,170 doses, and the clock begins to tick when it is out of the refrigerator. This presents some challenges to providing vaccines in clinics that are administered much less weekly than dedicated clinics, said O’Leary, but state health officials and vaccines. Manufacturers are actively working on solutions.

Refrigeration requirements also present challenges in rural areas of the state. Although San Miguel County includes wealthy communities like Telluride, it lacks many of the health care resources that the front-range community enjoys.

“So far, we’ve had a really hard time getting supplies and setting up a clinic,” said Grace Franklin, director of public health at San Miguel. “It’s very clear that Pfizer will not appear on the table.”

When the qualification was opened to older teenagers, 35 of them drove two hours one way to shoot Pfizer at the Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez. By pre-registering interested teens, San Miguel was able to operate two local clinics by delivering Pfizer doses by courier. Young teens (60 already pre-registered) get their first shot at the same clinic. At the same clinic, you’ll get a second shot in the second half of May.

In Tellride, public health workers ran clinics in junior high school gymnasiums, but in Norwood’s more conservative ranch community, parents fear that their children will be vaccinated without their consent. I had to move the clinic to the library after I said.

That would never happen, Franklin said. In retrospect, she wants the notification to be “provide” rather than “administer.” This is a lesson.

Six of the 30 targeted teenagers were shot at the library. Franklin counted it as a victory.

Chalkbeat reporter Yesenia Robles contributed to this report.