First lady Jill Biden will urge parents Monday to vaccinate children for COVID-19 during a visit to the first school to administer the polio vaccine in 1954.
Mrs. Biden’s stop at the Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia, signals that the administration’s campaign to convince parents to give smaller-dose Pfizer-BioNTech shots to children ages 5-11 is kicking into high gear.
It’s also part of the administration’s new plan to throw everything it can at lifting a vaccination rate that’s wallowed below 60%.
USA Today reports that Mrs. Biden and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy will be introduced by sixth-grader Everett Munson, who studied the history of the polio vaccine and will have just gotten his COVID-19 shot.
Federal agencies cleared the COVID-19 vaccine for ages 5 to 11 last week. The White House said an initial shipment of 15 million doses will make the specially labeled shots plentiful over the coming days.
Looking ahead, the administration said it secured enough shots for all 28 million eligible children.
Roughly 58% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated against the disease, though the newly eligible children will boost the rate, at least in the near term. Polls suggest about a third of parents want to vaccinate their kids and another third is open to it but in a wait-and-see mode.
The administration is nudging millions of workers to get vaccinated through a newly published regulation that requires private businesses and institutions with 100 or more employees to mandate the shots or weekly testing as of Jan. 4.
A federal appeals court temporarily blocked the rule Saturday, although the White House says it expects to prevail after a long legal fight.
Sign up for Daily Newsletters
