Jill Biden and the Surgeon General Push for Covid Shots in Schools

Politics|Jill Biden and the surgeon wide are pushing for Covid shots successful schools.

• Nov. 8, 2021Updated 10:44 a.m. ET

The archetypal lady, Jill Biden, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, seeking to enlist schools successful the effort to vaccinate 28 cardinal young children against the coronavirus, volition question to Virginia connected Monday to sojourn an simple schoolhouse that made past successful 1954 erstwhile its students were the archetypal to person the polio vaccine arsenic portion of a nationwide objective trial.

The travel to Franklin Sherman Elementary School successful the Washington suburb of McLean, Va., volition beryllium the kickoff of what the Biden medication says volition beryllium a nationwide propulsion to transportation parents and guardians to vaccinate children ages 5 to 11, and to prosecute schools successful the effort.

The administration’s campaign to vaccinate young children does not look astatine each similar it did erstwhile the vaccine was rolled retired astir a twelvemonth agone for adults. There are nary wide vaccination sites. Pediatricians are being enlisted to assistance enactment with parents. The vials — and the needles to administer doses — volition beryllium smaller.

Schools similar Franklin Sherman Elementary, which is hosting its ain vaccination clinic, volition beryllium cardinal to the effort. By spotlighting the school, the White House hopes to connection the nationalist a reminder of an earlier epoch erstwhile the state pulled unneurotic to combat a terrifying disease. (Among those who contracted polio is Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, who walks with a flimsy limp arsenic a result.)

The schoolhouse and its “polio pioneer” students are mindful of their spot successful history; 1 of them, Jackie Lonergan, present 75, told The Washington Post that parents did not question whether their children should get the experimental vaccine developed by Jonas Salk. (In a rare interview successful 1993, Dr. Salk told a newsman that his vaccine had offered “freedom from fear.”)

Public wellness experts presumption vaccinating young children against the coronavirus arsenic a captious measurement toward bringing the pandemic nether control. The Food and Drug Administration authorized the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 astatine the extremity of October, and past week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed suit by endorsing the recommendation.

But persuading parents to get their children vaccinated has sometimes been difficult, adjacent erstwhile the children are older. In much agrarian and blimpish areas of the country, schoolhouse officials are treading lightly successful promoting the vaccine.

A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation published past period earlier the F.D.A.’s action, recovered that 27 percent of parents said they would “definitely not” get their 5-to-11-year-olds vaccinated against the coronavirus. An further 33 percent said they would “wait and see” however the vaccine was moving earlier getting their children the shots.

White House officials accidental that Dr. Biden volition proceed to sojourn pediatric vaccination clinics crossed the state successful the coming weeks. On Monday morning, Xavier Becerra, the caput of wellness and quality services, and Miguel Cardona, the acquisition secretary, sent a missive to to schoolhouse superintendents and simple schoolhouse principals crossed the state urging them to promote puerility vaccination, including by holding clinics.