Question: The graph you shared in a recent Q&A seemed to show a little leveling off in vaccination uptake for the 5-11 set… I hope that’s a blip and not the start of a trend.  What is the pace of vaccination uptake among 5-11 year olds?

Answer: With the Thanksgiving holiday, I was also hoping that the “little leveling off” of vaccination uptake that we saw in last Thursday’s graph was also just a blip.  Using data from CDC, I pulled together a couple of charts to see how progress is trending.  Impressively, in just over a month, more than 5.04 million (18%) of children ages 5-11 in the US have received their first COVID vaccine dose.  In less positive news, the rate of uptake has substantially declined (Figure 1).  Over the last seven days, an average of ~67K first doses per day have been administered, down from a 7-day average high of 250K doses/day.  Some of the recent decline could be due to delays in reporting, but reporting delays do not account for the overall trend.  If we were to continue at the current pace, it would take nearly a year to achieve 75% first-dose vaccination coverage among 5-11 year olds.  With vaccines increasingly accessible and more real-world safety data coming alongside the coming of winter, omicron, and increasing delta-driven case loads, I encourage parents to get their children ages 5+ vaccinated as soon as possible.  

Figure 1. In the US, 18% of children ages 5-11 have received their first dose. The pace of uptake has slowed. (as of 12/7/21, data from CDC, visualizations by me)