With the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency authorization of the Pfizer vaccine dose for 5 to 11-year-olds, UK Healthcare is ready to start putting shots in arms. It has announced a large-scale pediatric vaccination clinic in Lexington to open on Nov. 9.
Dr. Lindsay Ragsdale, Interim Chief Medical Officer of Kentucky Children’s Hospital, said the pediatric COVID vaccine is not only important to protect the health of kids, but the health of those around them, because kids this age can be infected without showing any symptom.
“So they’re walking around, unknowingly to them, that they can spread COVID 19 to others, including their parents, their grandparents, maybe family members who are immune-suppressed and are more at risk,” explained Ragsdale. “So we do think that kids can be part of helping our society have a lower spread rate.”
Dr. Ragsdale said she knows there are fears of side-affects from the vaccine, most notably myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart. However, she said there were no cases of that in Pfizer trials and the threat of COVID is much worse.
“The benefits of being able to protect your child from serious illness is really key here,” Ragsdale said. “The risk of a child getting myocarditis is higher getting COVID-19 infection than it is to get the vaccine.”
The clinic will be located on the first floor of the UK HealthCare outpatient facility at 245 Fountain Court. Hours of operation for the clinic are expected to be from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. Parents can register their kids for the shots at ukvaccine.org
