DAVIS COUNTY—The Davis County Health Department is gearing up to start vaccinating children 5 to 11 years old starting Monday, Nov. 8 following CDC approval of the Pfizer – BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday.

This comes as Primary Children’s Hospital has seen a significant uptick of children being hospitalized with COVID.

“Kids make up 20 percent of new COVID cases,” said Jennifer Toomer-Cook, Media Relations Manager at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital at a press briefing. “Half of those are in children 5 to10 years old.”

“People have been sold a bill of goods,” said Dr. Andrew Pavia U of U Health/Primary Children’s Hospital. “Children are really suffering from COVID-19 during the Delta variant. When people tell me that kids don’t get very sick you should walk in our shoes every day.”

Pavia said they’re seeing 8 to 12 children in the hospital every day. “That’s an increase over where we were at the beginning of September and much worse than we had last year.”

Although rare, Pavia said they’re seeing cases of multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) complications from the virus. “It is usually about 30 days after infection, even mild infection. It’s one of the most serious complications. We’re seeing about 120 children with MIS-C and most children need ICU care in contrast with regular infection where one out of three will end up in the ICU.”

MIS-C follows infection and the Delta variant really caused infection in school aged kids, he said. “It really started in July but accelerated when school opened. As you know we’re really not using all of our tools to make schools safe this year.”

The way to avoid MIS-C is to prevent infection, even mild infection, said Pavia. “In the next couple of days we’re going to have a powerful tool for kids 5 to 11 – that’s going to be the vaccine.”

The Davis County Health Department will be offering the vaccine to children aged 5 to 11 at the drive-thru COVID-19 Vaccination Clinic at the Legacy Events Center starting Nov. 8. Clinic hours are Monday – Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The week of Nov. 15, the DCHD will revert back to its Monday – Wednesday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. schedule. Appointments are required and can be made online at https://go.usa.gov/xAZFD. 

“It’s understandable that parents worry more about vaccinating their kids and not themself,” said Pavia. “Look at the risk. We have a lot of COVID spreading in schools in this age group. If I had a child in this age group in Utah I'd get them vaccinated the very first day that I could.”