With Durango School District 9-R set to begin classes Aug. 24, medical practitioners are reaching out to families to get children 12 and older vaccinated and fully immunized against COVID-19 before the first bell rings.
Dr. Cecile Fraley with Pediatric Partners of the Southwest said Tuesday is the latest day a child can be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus and be fully protected against the virus by 9-R’s first day of school.
These San Juan Basin Public Health COVID-19 vaccinatioin clinics provide both the Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Children 12 to 17 years old are eligible only for Pfizer at this time. Parental/guardian consent is required for 12- to 17-year-olds either in advance during registration or on-site at the clinic. Additional vaccine providers are available on the SJBPH website: https://sjbpublichealth.org/covid-19-vaccine/.
– Fort Lewis College Student Life Center, 125 West Campus Court. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday to Friday; 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays.
– La Plata County Fairgrounds, 2500 Main Ave. 10 a.m.-2 p.m. July 23, July 30.
– Animas Valley Grange, 7271 County Road 203. 4-8 p.m. July 23.
– Durango Farmers Market, 259 W. Ninth St. 8 a.m.-noon Saturdays.
– Manna soup kitchen, 1100 Avenida del Sol. 9-11 a.m. Thursdays.
– Durango Flea Market, 2500 Main Ave. 8 a.m.-noon Sundays.
– Old Main Post Office, 1060 Main Ave. 5-7 p.m. Tuesdays, 5-7 p.m. Wednesdays and 2-6 p.m. Saturdays.
– Purgatory Mountain Resort, 1 Skier Place. 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Fridays.
– ELHI Community Center Movie Night, 115 Ute St., Ignacio. 7-10 p.m. Friday.
– PJ’s Gourmet Market, 67 Trimble Crossing. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday, July 21.
Pfizer, the only vaccination approved for children 12 and older, is widely available at regular public clinics across Southwest Colorado.
Children younger than 12 have not been approved for COVID-19 vaccinations, but U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of the Pfizer vaccine for children 5 to 11 years old is expected by fall.
The Pfizer vaccine requires a second dose three weeks after the first shot, and it takes two weeks after the second dose to be fully immunized against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Fraley said Pediatric Partners of the Southwest now offers the COVID-19 vaccination to its patients who are 12 and older at its Horse Gulch clinic, 810 E. Third St., Suite 301.
Also, Pediatric Partners is offering the COVID-19 vaccination to any child 12 or older at its school-based clinics at Durango High School, 2390 Main Ave., and the old Bayfield Elementary School, 658 S. East St.
“Anytime a new age is approved, we reach out to all our families and let them know that we’re giving the vaccine,” Fraley said. “They obviously have lots of choices where they can schedule it. But I think some folks are more comfortable doing it at their physician’s office.”
So far, Fraley estimates Pediatric Partners has inoculated about 1,400 children 12 and older.
“This spring I believe we were the first pediatric practice in the state to offer the vaccine because on the Front Range, people would go to Children’s Hospital Clinics. So, down here, obviously, it’s too far to go to Denver to get your kids vaccinated,” Fraley said.
Based on statistics, children are at low risk to be severely sickened by the novel coronavirus.
However, Fraley said getting vaccinated means students will not have to quarantine if they are exposed at school.
Also, students who are vaccinated will not need to be tested for COVID-19 if schools conduct regular swab tests of their populations, a common practice last year to minimize transmission.
Fraley said many students have suffered academic and mental health issues when they were out of school and learning remotely. Increasing vaccination rates among students 12 and older reduces the chance schools will have to go to remote learning, she said.
One final benefit children 12 and older receive from the vaccination is protection against the delta variant, which has proved to be more transmissible than the original strain of the virus.
Julie Popp, spokeswoman for Durango School District 9-R, said the district does not require children 12 and older get vaccinated, and the district makes no recommendations to families either to vaccinate or not to vaccinate their children who are 12 and older.
However, 9-R does pass on information about clinics offering the Pfizer vaccine and can accommodate families with children as young as 12 who want to get them inoculated.
Currently, district officials are looking at La Plata County vaccination rates for people 12 and older, and Popp said if that reaches 70% fully vaccinated, the district likely will be able to discontinue some practices such as face-mask wearing, social distancing and grouping students into cohorts.
“If we are at the 70% vaccinated rate for the 12 and up population, we’re much more likely to be able to go into a normal school year, and we don’t need to follow practices like social distancing that were concessions made to slow transmission of the virus but weren’t necessarily conducive to the normal operations of a school,” she said.
9-R’s executive team is working on guidelines for how it will handle COVID-19 during the upcoming school year based on local conditions and recommendations and guidelines from state agencies and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It’s important that families do understand that we are dependent on that 70% threshold, and that we all have this part to play to ensure that we keep our schools as safe and healthy for everyone, the students, the teachers and the staff,” Popp said.
Brian Devine, San Juan Basin Public Health’s deputy incident commander for the COVID-19 response, said based on CDC recommendations, SJBPH does recommend most children 12 and older get the COVID-19 vaccination.
Devine said families and children should first seek the advice of their doctors about whether to get vaccinated. However, for most children who do not have relatively rare medical conditions, SJBPH follows the CDC recommendation that they should get the vaccine.
“Our recommendation aligns with the recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control, which does recommend that unless you have certain contraindications, medical reasons, that are pretty rare, if your child is 12 to 17 years old, then they should receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine,” he said.
The Pfizer vaccines used by Pediatric Partners are supplied by SJBPH and Animas Surgical Hospital.
Besides its school-based clinics in Durango and Bayfield, Pediatric Partners has conducted remote COVID-19 vaccination clinics with Silverton schools.
If medical providers at Pediatric Partners have extra doses of the vaccinations, they are offered to unvaccinated parents who come with their children to get the shot, Fraley said.
Children who receive the COVID-19 vaccination must have permission to receive it from a parent or a guardian, and they should be accompanied by a parent or a guardian when they receive their shot.
parmijo@durangoherald.com
