By Reagan Morrow

The new vaccine called the Pfizer-BioNTech pediatric COVID-19 vaccine is now available for kids 5-11 and our school nurses are preparing for the quarantine rules and how quarantine will change. According to the dashboard published by the district, the elementary schools have had to most amount of confirmed COVID cases in students. Greene County currently has about 21% of the 0-19 age group vaccinated.

School nurses in the the Bellbrook Sugarcreek Schools were asked whether they thought a lot of kids will be getting the vaccines and what the impact will be on quarantine rates. One school nurse noted, “I think possibly 33% or less of parents will be eager to get their children ages 5 to 11 vaccinated. I think possibly 33% or less of parents will take a wait-and-see approach to getting this vaccine. I think possibly 33% or more who will be opposed to this vaccine at this time for their young children.” The school nurses foresee that with the new vaccine there could be fewer quarantines but they won’t know for sure because of the time span between each dosage and when the child gets fully vaccinated.

To find more information on COVID vaccines, visit https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/index.html and the Greene County Public Health site.