Mom Sasha Taylor knew Arnoldo would scream and writhe in her arms, that Acia, who uses a wheelchair, would tense up, and that Alea would try to comfort them both.
But after all the drama, Taylor was serene.
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Six-hundred and six days after the District recorded its first coronavirus case, her children received their first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
“I just want to make sure me and my family are safe,” said Taylor, 32, of Takoma.
Her son, 9, and twin girls, 10, were among the first children in their age group in the nation to be vaccinated Wednesday at a Children’s National Hospital clinic after federal authorities late Tuesday cleared the way for use of the coronavirus vaccine in 5-to-11-year-olds.
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Acia, who has cerebral palsy and a host of conditions including chronic lung disease and epilepsy, was hospitalized for 14 days in the spring with covid-19 and pneumonia — a stay she had to endure alone after Taylor tested positive for the coronavirus, too.
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“I don’t even think she would make it if she were to get sick again. It was really hard on her,” Taylor said. “It was hard on both of us.”
Children’s National Hospital providers have identified about 24,000 children who have complex diagnoses and live in neighborhoods hit hard by the pandemic, such as Wards 7 and 8 in the District, and Prince George’s County, Md. They will be offered the vaccine first, through primary care offices, specialized clinics and mobile units.
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Disparities in access to medical care, housing and food insecurity as well as lower uptake of the vaccine generally make children in some parts of the region more vulnerable to the coronavirus, which has disproportionately impacted Black and Latino communities.
Wards 7 and 8 have long represented poor, Black D.C. neighborhoods. What does it mean to redistrict them?
Vaccinations began Wednesday as parents around the country and in D.C., Maryland and Virginia who are eager to get their elementary school children vaccinated scoured websites in search of appointments — often booking later than they had hoped, if at all.
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Locally, public health officials advised parents to check Vaccines.gov, pediatrics offices, state and local health departments and pharmacies. It may take a few days for registration systems to go live as providers receive vaccine specially formulated and packaged for children 5 to 11, they say.
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DC Health on Friday will host pop-up vaccine clinics at Takoma Community Center in Ward 4 (300 Van Buren Street NW) and Fort Stanton Recreation Center in Ward 8 (1812 Erie Street SE). Parents or guardians can bring their children between 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. and appointments will not be necessary. The vaccine is always free.
In the coming days and weeks, vaccine will be available at more than 60 pharmacies, hospitals and health centers across the District, as well as one-time clinics in schools and recreation centers in every ward between Nov. 8 and 20, officials said.
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Community health clinics, like Mary’s Center, which Mayor Muriel E. Bowser visited Wednesday, are also administering vaccine to 5-to-11-year-olds.
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At the Children’s National Shepherd Park clinic on Wednesday, Rachael Brown, 38, snuggled her 5-year-old son, Ben Hayes, and took a selfie with him before he got the jab. He has had nine surgeries since birth due to a vascular malformation.
“This is a big deal for my family,” she said.
As federal officials gave the vaccine the green light for use in kids 5 to 11 Tuesday night, Brown tracked the process on Twitter and texted her mom group chat: “Ben’s getting vaccinated tomorrow!”
About one-third of parents were eager to get their children vaccinated as soon as they were eligible, national polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows, but as of September, one third said they would wait and see, and another third would not get their kids vaccinated, or would do so only if required. Public health experts and officials are working hard to try to overcome the politicization of mitigation efforts and disinformation about the vaccines.
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Sarah Schaffer DeRoo, a Children’s National pediatrician who studies vaccine hesitancy, said parents have questions about safety and side effects and worry the process may have been rushed or influenced by politics. A history of racist practices in the medical establishment may also stoke mistrust in the Black community, she said. White rural communities have also been slow to embrace the vaccines, data shows.
The reality of the virus has been impossible for Carolyn Talley, 68, of Southeast to ignore. She home-schools her adopted sons Damontae Richardson-Talley, 9, and Gilberto Talley, 11, who has had four heart surgeries and has a pacemaker.
Talley’s older sister died of covid-19 in Florida at age 71, and her three granddaughters, who are in their 20s and live in D.C., believe vaccine conspiracy theories.
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“I pray,” she said, “and pray that God protect them and they wake up soon.”
New infections have been on the decline across the region for weeks, with the seven-day average down to 2,090, nearly half of what it was a month ago, data shows.
Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Wednesday said the state will soon send text messages to parents and run TV ads designed to get the message out about the latest eligibility group.
“We have a chance to give our kids their lives back,” said Monique Soileau-Burke, vice president of the Maryland Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who joined Hogan at a news conference.
Danny Avula, Virginia’s vaccine coordinator and a pediatrician, said parents may wonder whether their younger children need to be vaccinated when only mild disease is typical if they get infected. The state recorded a fivefold increase in pediatric hospitalizations with the onset of the delta variant, he said.
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One-on-one conversations are most effective at quelling vaccine concerns, he said.
“As we’ve seen at every step of the vaccine rollout, this all comes back to trusted messengers. We know for families, pediatricians are the ones that have that trusted voice when it comes to health outcomes,” Avula told reporters Wednesday.
Taylor, the mom of three, said she jumped at the chance to get her children vaccinated over the objections of her family.
“A lot of my family and friends, they are opposed to it. If my family were to know that I got them vaccinated, a lot of them would be upset. Because there’s so many stories and stuff going around about it,” she said. “But I’d rather them be safe than anything.”
Ovetta Wiggins contributed to this report.
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