Weeks into the Covid booster rollout, parents of young children say the shots are scarce

Amber van Moessner, like many parents with young children, has contracted Covid-19 from her kids twice. When the FDA approved updated booster shots on September 11 for individuals aged 6 months and older, she was hopeful. However, she has faced challenges getting her children vaccinated, as pharmacies near her home in Kinderhook, New York, have limited child-size vaccine doses and a lack of information on when more will become available.

Van Moessner’s attempts to obtain information about vaccine availability from her pediatrician, county health department, and vaccines.gov yielded no clear answers. Pop-up clinics for children’s vaccinations are also scarce, posing difficulties for parents of young children. Most states do not permit pharmacists to administer vaccines, and about half of them restrict pharmacists from vaccinating children under 3.

Unlike previous vaccine rollouts in 2020-21 and 2022, the current rollout is not being managed by the federal government, leading to confusion about insurance coverage rules, supplies, and appointment availability. Vaccines also need to be stored at specific temperatures, which can be a challenge for pediatricians’ offices.

The main issue may be providers’ reluctance to order doses that may go unused. They must pay upfront for vaccine doses and are incentivized to avoid overestimating demand. Since children require smaller vials of vaccines than adults, providers must make decisions on how much to purchase. While many parents want to vaccinate their children, vaccination rates for children have consistently been lower than for adults.

Frustration is growing among parents who are having difficulty accessing vaccines for their children. They feel left to fend for themselves in the quest to secure the right vaccines, leaving them feeling immensely isolated during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The problem extends beyond young children, as even high-risk individuals, such as Erin Belieu, a professor at the University of Houston, have faced challenges finding doses for their children. Belieu noted the time and resources she and others had to invest in tracking down vaccine doses and expressed frustration with the lack of a well-organized vaccine rollout, especially several years into the pandemic.