ATLANTA — Sesame Street’s Elmo, who is 3½, recently got his COVID-19 vaccine.
The littlest muppet’s shot was intended to spark interest in vaccinating the nation’s youngest children against COVID, after recent federal approval of the shots for those ages 6 months to 5. But interest in the vaccine remains low in Georgia, even as cases among children under 5 statewide have been rising for eight weeks. The youngest age group is the only population other than those 70 and over to show such a trend, according to Amber Schmidtke, a public health researcher.
Besides doing little to slow the spread of COVID among toddlers and infants, the lagging uptake in the new vaccine is contributing to an untold number of wasted doses, as the vaccines for children under 5 are packaged 10 to a vial. Once a vial is opened, all doses must be used or discarded within 12 hours. Several Atlanta metro area pediatricians told the AJC they’ve had to throw out more than half their doses.
