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On Sept. 12, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will release the next COVID vaccine circular for everyone 6 months and older.
The CDC said the vaccines would be available within days at pharmacies and doctors’ offices across the country.
But more than a month later, some parents are reporting persistent difficulties locating pediatric versions of the new COVID vaccines, aimed at children between the ages of 6 months and 11 years.
This story was produced in partnership with KFF Health News.
A confluence of issues, from technical regulations on who can administer injections to young children to a lack of accurate data online on where to locate child-friendly doses, makes it tricky for some parents for their children.
“No one has exact data on where the doses exist. It’s just a real logistical crisis to try to locate data and I was freaking out,” says Anne Hamilton, a Los Angeles resident who searched for weeks to locate a pediatric dose for her four children.
Hamilton first consulted with her son’s physical care system. The only one who submitted appointments for adult vaccines.
“The pop-up [on the website] says, ‘New vaccines are expected by last September, check back later. ‘Well, it’s a frustrating message to read in October and they don’t give you any other information. ,” she says.
One challenge that has caused headaches for parents has been looking at the dosages their insurance covers.
For the first time since the start of the pandemic, this COVID vaccine is funded through the federal government. Now, pharmacies and doctors have to buy the vaccines from providers and buy them on-site. And families have to use their fitness insurance to pay for them, and that can be tricky.
After days of searching online and many red herrings, Hamilton nonetheless discovered a pharmacy more than an hour from Palmdale that provided pediatric doses. She called to make sure they had won the vaccines and also accepted MediCal, her son’s government insurance.
After trusting both, the Hamiltons made the hour-long trip. But when they arrived, pharmacists said they couldn’t vaccinate Jimmy because he was under 18. Hamilton called MediCal to clarify.
“The MediCal Phone representative explained to us that they had to go through the vaccination program for children,” she says. “So we thought, OK, we don’t know what this program is. “
As a pediatric MediCal beneficiary, Hamilton’s son can only get vaccinated through a provider in the federal government’s Vaccines for Children program.
“No one has disclosed data that young people who receive MediCal want to get vaccinated through the Vaccines for Children program,” Hamilton said.
“No one knows how to locate a pop-up clinic near you because some of them are even indexed on page MyTurn. gov,” he says, referring to an online vaccine appointment page found throughout the state of California.
Hamilton was directed to another California-run website, which aimed to show the location of pediatric vaccine providers in the state.
“This just doesn’t work,” Hamilton said after checking it out.
Frustrated, she emailed the California Department of Public Health, who told her that they were aware of the inactive online page and that “the IT branch was running it. “No one from CRPD came forward to help Hamilton or refer her to the list of claimants she needed, she says.
After a reporter from LAist and KPCC asked the CRPD why the Google map of vaccines for children was not working, the online page was corrected. However, it only shows interested providers, without indicating whether those doctors and pharmacies have pediatric COVID vaccines in stock. Parents call each provider separately to see if they are accepting patients and get vaccinated, or check the federal vaccines. gov online page to make referrals.
Hamilton frustrated and crying.
“I know parents all over the country who are looking for doses. Right now we’re all looking for vaccines,” he says.
There are two parallel vaccination systems in the U. S. In the U. S. , and the one used by young people depends on their insurance. Children with advertising fitness insurance get vaccinated in the advertising market. But young people with government insurance like MediCal get vaccinated through the federally funded Vaccines for Children program. — and only providers, like Eric Ball, an Orange County pediatrician, can give them the vaccine.
Through the Vaccines for Children program, “we place an order, the vaccines come to us, the government has already paid for them, and then we distribute them for free to patients who have those insurances,” Ball says.
For children covered through advertising insurance plans, physical care providers will need to purchase the amount they think they will need in advance. But Ball says many pediatricians aren’t stockpiling or administering the COVID vaccine to those children because they can’t.
“A lot of pediatric practices are small businesses and that means we have to spend a lot of money upfront to buy those vaccines and then wait weeks or months to get that money back,” he says.
If parents get vaccinated at a pharmacy, they would likely face another hurdle: regulations that limit the types of providers authorized to administer vaccines to children. Pharmacists can only vaccinate children ages 3 and older under federal transience legislation. This excludes young children between the ages of 6 months and 3 years, who seek medical attention.
“We have a very long list of families in our workplace who are waiting for the day our COVID vaccines arrive so that we can still start vaccinating them. There’s been a lot of frustration,” Ball says.
Ball’s participates in any of the pediatric immunization systems. Thanks to Vaccines for Children, his practice has gained pediatric doses, but he can only administer them to eligible patients.
It took her commercially insured patients more than a month to receive just one hundred pediatric COVID doses. This is not enough to meet demand.
“It’s a shame because we’ve missed a lot of opportunities since this vaccine was approved more than a month ago,” he says.
“We’ve gained a lot of patients who need to vaccinate their children, especially young people and young people who don’t have the coverage of previous vaccines. “
Thousands of doses ordered, loads arrive
St. John’s Community Health is a federally funded social welfare clinic with locations in Los Angeles County. The network serves low-income youth and families, and for its pediatric immunizations, the clinic relies entirely on the Vaccines for Children program. But President Jim Mangia says orders for the new pediatric COVID vaccine are shrinking.
“We ask for 3,000 (pediatric doses) a week and we make 500,” he says.
But St. John’s serves 50,000 children, says Mangia. John’s doesn’t promote the COVID vaccine and doesn’t send emails or texts to spread the message, as staff often do.
“We’re basically holding back,” he says. If someone asks for it, we give them the vaccine, but we don’t make the effort that we do to vaccinate other people because we don’t have enough yet. “
The Childhood Immunization program is controlled through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During a recent stopover in Los Angeles, CDC Director Mandy Cohen said she is not aware of any issues with the source or ordering of COVID vaccines.
“There’s no limit on orders, we’ve heard that other people will get their deliveries within 3 or 4 weeks,” she said. “I will say that my son’s pediatrician is vaccinated and had a COVID vaccination clinic, so the vaccine exists. “
Anne Hamilton’s son, Jimmy, was still vaccinated thanks to a pop-up clinic run by Los Angeles County. She feels lucky to have figured it out.
“I told one of my friends that I was going to vaccinate my kids and she said, ‘Have you discovered a pediatric vaccine?I can’t. ‘”
A Wish as Winter Approaches
Pediatrician Eric Ball is concerned about what the slow rollout will mean for vulnerable young children, who are too young to have been vaccinated before and want vaccines before the expected winter wave of COVID.
“If we want those young people to be vaccinated for gatherings like Thanksgiving and winter break, it’s critical that we start doing that now because this is not a one-off situation. We want those young people to get the doses several weeks early. they can be very well protected,” he says.
Meanwhile, children continue to be infected. One of Ball’s patients, a 4-year-old boy, tested positive the same day at his doctor’s office, despite winning 100 doses of the pediatric vaccine. The child’s mother had tried to vaccinate the child.
“As a pediatrician, the only thing that hurts me more than seeing a child be in poor health or be hospitalized is that they are in poor health or are hospitalized for whatever I have saved. And if I don’t have the equipment to save you that, it hurts and it’s very sad,” Ball says.
This story comes from NPR’s journalistic partnership with LAist and KFF Health News.