Oakland County will host vaccine clinics for young people in 16 county schools this month.
The school clinics are aimed at vaccinating children ages five to eleven, who just became eligible. But the clinics will vaccinate anyone eighteen and under.
Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter says 75% of the county’s eligible residents have received at least one COVID vaccine dose. That’s one of the highest vaccination rates in the state.
But Coulter says vaccine rates for younger people are still lagging.
“So I’m putting out a personal plea to the parents to get your kids vaccinated. It’ll keep your family safe.”
Coulter says the county’s public health department has already scheduled around nine-thousand vaccines for five-to-eleven-year-olds.
Dr. Russell Faust is Oakland County’s medical director. He says the pediatric COVID vaccine has been closely scrutinized and it's safe and effective.
Faust says the vaccine will protect children from a relatively rare but very serious outcome of getting sick with COVID: multi-system inflammatory syndrome.
“MIS-C is most common in this age range of 5-11. So this is a wonderful tool to keep these children healthy and in school, and to help put an end to this pandemic.”
Ann Arbor schools have also announced that they plan to host vaccine clinics for children in the upcoming weeks.
