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Parents seeking early COVID vaccines for kids under 5 strike out as NYC websites lag

By

Sophia Chang

Published Jun 21, 2022

Modified Jun 22, 2022

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A baby is seen dressed up as bunny at the annual Easter Parade on April 17, 2022 in New York City

Ryan Rahman/Pacific Press/Shutterstock

By

Sophia Chang

Published Jun 21, 2022

Modified Jun 22, 2022

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New York parents seeking the COVID-19 vaccine for their infants and toddlers have had little luck so far.

Despite the federal government authorizing the vaccines for children ages 6 months to 5 years old over the weekend, supplies of the Pfizer and Moderna shots have yet to be delivered, according to interviews with a half dozen pediatricians, pharmacies and clinics.

City officials had vowed last week that the COVID-19 Vaccine Finder website would be updated “beginning on June 21 … to find convenient locations across the five boroughs to vaccinate young children.” Appointments for 10 city-run sites were expected to open Tuesday under this pledge.

But no appointments for the pediatric shots, which carry a smaller dosage than the adult version, had emerged on the NYC Vaccine Finder website as of Tuesday afternoon. Mayor Eric Adam’s original promise called for the “tots for shots” program to open as early as Wednesday.

The mayor’s office told Gothamist that it planned to open up city-run appointments by 9 p.m. Tuesday night. But Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine tweeted that the city missed the deadline, and the Twitter account "nyc covid vaccine appointments" reported that bookings went online around 9:45 p.m.

Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan held an event Wednesday morning to launch the tots program at the Times Square COVID-19 vaccination site. The city health department did not respond to inquiries about how many doses have been ordered for New York City children.

Jay Wain visits the Times Square vaccine site with her kids Amara (left) and Ellora, June 22nd, 2022.

Elizabeth Shwe

The volume of the supply at public sites and pediatricians will be crucial, as under New York state law, pharmacies cannot vaccinate children under 3 years old. The state Department of Health said outside of the city, providers have ordered only around 39,000 doses of the vaccines. But state-run mass vaccination sites will not vaccinate kids under 5 years old, and the governor’s office is encouraging parents to seek out their pediatricians, family physicians, local county health departments and federally qualified health centers.

New York State reports more than 1.1 million kids under the age of 5, with about 500,000 of those kids living in the city.

“We've gotten calls from parents already, saying ‘do you have it, do you have it, do you have it?’” said Dr. Mark Horowitz, a family physician in Lower Manhattan.

He said he ordered a hundred doses each of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for his practice. For kids under 5, the Moderna vaccine requires two shots to be fully inoculated, while Pfizer calls for three doses.

“Probably shipping will start in the next day or so. I'm a little surprised it hasn't started already because parents are so anxious to get their kids vaccinated,” Horowitz said.

Even when deliveries arrive, some pediatricians said they won’t be able to offer vaccinations to their patients.

Dr. Julissa Baez of East Village Pediatrics said her small practice cannot accommodate the storage needs of the vaccines, which have to be kept at specific temperatures. Nor did she think she could efficiently dispense the vaccines without wasting doses, since she has far fewer patients than the minimum order that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna required. Both companies require 100 doses be requested in a single order.

Instead, Baez is referring her patients to pharmacies and another pediatric practice in Gramercy to get their COVID-19 vaccines.

“In the past, we've never had a problem doing immunizations, but this one is a particular one,” Baez said. “It's a little hard when you're solo.”

Sasha Kesler of Riverdale in the Bronx says she has no good options to get her two-year-old child vaccinated.

“My pediatrician is not offering it. And it seems none of the pediatricians in my neighborhood are currently. So, like, I actually just don't know where to go,” Kesler said.

She said the city’s sole Bronx vaccination site in Morrisania is an hour away from her home and also closes at 5 p.m., which makes it difficult for many working parents to access.

“It seems unbelievable that there's not actually a goal of really making it accessible in the way that the city tried to do for other vaccine rollouts, where there were pop-ups everywhere,” Kesler said.

Also on Tuesday, Adams and commissioner Vasan lowered the city's COVID-19 alert levels from "high" to medium," as the number of hospitalizations gradually subsides.

Here’s a list of the health department’s vaccine sites for tots — for whenever they go online:

MANHATTAN

QUEENS

BRONX

STATEN ISLAND

BROOKLYN

This story has been updated to include new details released after publication.

Tagged

COVID-19

new york city

infant

toddler

vaccine

Sophia Chang

Sophia Chang is a former WNYC and Gothamist reporter.

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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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