First Lady Dr. Jill Biden joined the administration’s push to vaccinate children aged 5-11 across the United States, visiting a vaccination clinic at Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia alongside Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on Monday.
It was a symbolic location for Dr. Biden’s first trip to a pediatric vaccination site since U.S. health officials formally approved the Pfizer-BioNTech jab for use in the young age group last week: In 1954, Franklin Sherman Elementary became the first U.S. school to administer a polio vaccine to its students during clinical trials.
Nearly seven decades later, the first lady witnessed a group of brave schoolchildren roll up their sleeves to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
“This is exactly what we wanted, that the kids feel good about [getting vaccinated],” Dr. Biden said to a group of children who had just received their first COVID-19 vaccine. “You guys are leaders, so thank you for being so brave.”
One of the students — sixth grader Everett Munson — introduced the first lady ahead of a subsequent speech, saying his class learned that polio outbreaks were eradicated thanks to the vaccine.
“Now, we have vaccines that can help our immune systems learn how to find COVID-19,” he said. “It’s important to be vaccinated because it protects you and others around you, especially people at high risk.”
The first lady, who herself is a teacher, thanked Everett for his lesson, saying: “I can tell that you have a great future ahead of you.”
Around 260 students were vaccinated Monday at Franklin Sherman Elementary, and the first lady made sure to thank all of them for their bravery during her address.
“I know that getting vaccinated isn’t always a fun thing to do. I don’t like needles myself,” she said. “So let’s give a round of applause to all the brave kids here who got their shots.”
Dr. Biden also spoke directly to parents and guardians of the students, saying she understands the anxiety they must have felt for the past 18 months before their children could get vaccinated against the deadly virus.
President Joe Biden and the first lady share one daughter, Ashley; Dr. Biden also helped raise her husband’s two sons, Hunter and Beau, after Joe Biden’s first wife and daughter passed away in a car accident.
“Parenthood and worrying just go hand in hand. It’s just what we do as parents. So I can’t promise you that the danger of this world will become any less frightening,” the first lady said, later adding: “But with this vaccine we can take away at least one of your worries. A big one.”
A Pfizer study of 2,268 children found the vaccine was almost 91% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 infections. The Food and Drug Administration studied the shots in 3,100 vaccinated kids in concluding the shots are safe.
“This vaccine will help us protect our children,” Dr. Murthy said in his own Monday remarks. “And that’s what today is about. It’s about keeping our children healthy, allowing them to regain the parts of their life that they’ve missed.”
As of last Wednesday, the Biden administration had planned over 6,000 vaccine clinics, like the one at Franklin Sherman, for school districts across the country, with more to be announced in the coming weeks. Pediatric COVID vaccinations are also available at pharmacies including Walgreens and CVS, and guardians can search appointment times and locations on the federal Vaccines.gov website.
The child-size dosage, which is a third of what is given to adults, will be available at around 20,000 total locations nationwide, many of which “will offer times on nights and weekends so parents can take their children to get vaccinated after work and after school,” the president said last week.
About 28 million kids ages 5 to 11 are newly eligible for shots now that the Pfizer vaccine is approved for the age group. The White House says the federal government has procured enough of the two-dose vaccine for all of them.
The White House says Biden will visit pediatric vaccination clinics across the country over the coming weeks to encourage the shots.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
