Children ages 5-11 will soon be required to comply with San Francisco’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in order to enter places such as restaurants or entertainment venues, according to a city official.
The San Francisco Department of Health and the UCSF Division of General Pediatrics held a town hall meeting on Tuesday in which they discussed the use of the vaccine for children ages 5-11, according to SFGATE. During the meeting, the city health officer explained that children would eventually have to comply with the city’s vaccine mandate.
“We definitely want to wait and make sure that children have an opportunity to get vaccinated,” Dr. Susan Philip said during the town hall. “That will happen no sooner than about eight weeks after the vaccine is available to kids.”
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San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced Aug. 12 that beginning Aug. 20 the city would begin requiring people to show proof of vaccination in order to enter places such as restaurants, bars, gyms, and health facilities, along with large event spaces.
Philip explained during the town hall meeting that “at some point, 5-to-11-year-olds” would also be required to start showing proof of their vaccination status in order to enter indoor settings.
On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave the final OK for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to be used for children between the ages of 5-11.
Prior to the CDC’s final approval, the Food and Drug Administration had cleared Pfizer’s vaccine for emergency authorization use, as a two-shot regime, each of the jabs being three weeks apart. The shots each contain 10 micrograms of fluid, being roughly one-third the amount used in the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for adults.
Pfizer and BioNTech submitted data to the FDA on Sept. 28 regarding the effectiveness of the vaccine. In the study of the vaccine on 2,268 children, Pfizer and BioNTech discovered that the vaccine “elicited robust neutralizing antibody response” in the children.
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Prior to this, Pfizer and BioNTech had received full approval in August for their coronavirus vaccine for people ages 16 or older.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Oct. 1 that, pending full approval, children in California would be required to get inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine.
As of Wednesday, California reported a total of 4,674,665 coronavirus-related cases and 71,646 deaths, according to data from the California COVID-19 website. Across the whole state, 73.2% have received two jabs of a COVID-19 vaccine or are considered to be fully vaccinated, while 7.8% of people are considered to be partially vaccinated.
