Biden encourages parents to get their eligible children vaccinated against Covid-19: ‘A day of relief and celebration’

By Maegan Vazquez, CNN

President Joe Biden called the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s authorization of the Covid-19 vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11 “a giant step forward to further accelerate our path out of this pandemic,” saying Wednesday that it’s “a day of relief and celebration” for parents around the country.

“The bottom line is: We’ve been planning and preparing for months to vaccinate our children. Our program will be ramping up this week and more doses (will be) shipped out each day so that we have it fully up and running by next week,” Biden said during remarks at the White House Wednesday afternoon.

“We’re going to do everything we can to make these vaccines easily available and raise awareness of the importance of getting vaccinated. So parents of children ages 5 and over: please get them vaccinated,” he continued. “Because here’s the deal. Children make up one-quarter of the cases in this country and while rare, children can get very sick from Covid-19. And some can end up, few can end up hospitalized.”

Biden said that parents with concerns about vaccinating their children should talk to trusted messengers, including their families’ pediatricians.

“This vaccine is safe and effective, so get your children vaccinated to protect themselves, to protect others and to stop the spread and to help us beat this pandemic,” he said.

He also drew a distinction between this year and where the country was last November.

“Later this month, our tables and our hearts are going to be filled thanks to the vaccines. We’ve made incredible progress over these last nine months, but we have to keep going,” he said.

On Tuesday evening, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky endorsed a recommendation for vaccinating children ages 5-11 against Covid-19, clearing the way for immediate vaccination of the youngest age group yet in the United States. The recommendation expands to include about 28 million children in the United States, according to the CDC.

Earlier Wednesday, the White House outlined how the Biden administration is ramping up the vaccination program for children.

“Following the (US Food and Drug Administration’s) authorization last Friday, teams immediately began packing vaccines specifically formulated for kids ages 5-11 into specialized containers and they’ve been working 24/7 to ship millions of doses to thousands of vaccination sites across the country,” White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said.

Zients said that starting next week, the vaccination program for children will be fully up and running with about 20,000 “trusted and convenient locations” available for parents to get their kids vaccinated including pediatricians, family doctors, pharmacies, community health centers and children’s hospitals. Some of those locations have already started scheduling vaccine appointments for children and others, including CVS and Walgreens, will open scheduling systems on Wednesday.

He also said that by the end of the week, parents and guardians can go to vaccines.gov to search for locations near them offering vaccinations for kids ages 5-11.

First comments since Tuesday’s elections

After his speech, Biden told reporters he was not sure whether the passage of his key legislative agenda items before Election Day would have changed the outcome of Virginia’s gubernatorial race.

Biden-endorsed Democrat Terry McAuliffe lost to Republican Glenn Youngkin.

While Tuesday’s elections were also marked by Democratic wins in other parts of the country, the Virginia governor’s race has largely been seen as a marker for Democrats’ chances in the midterm elections next year.

When asked whether their passage would have potentially changed the outcome of the Virginia race, Biden said, “Well, I think we should have passed (it) before Election Day, but I’m not sure that I would have been able to change the number of very conservative folks who turned out in their red districts who were Trump voters. But maybe.”

The President also said he spoke to McAuliffe on Wednesday.

Biden told reporters that voters want Democrats to “get things done.”

“People are upset and uncertain about a lot of things from Covid to school to jobs to a whole range of things,” Biden said, arguing that the passage of his agenda items would “see a lot of those things ameliorated.”

“I think we should produce for the American people,” the President said. “People need a little breathing room. They’re overwhelmed and what happened was, I think we just have to produce results for them to change their standard of living and give them a little more breathing room.”

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CNN’s Jason Hoffman, Jeremy Diamond, Arlette Saenz and Maggie Fox contributed to this report.