PROMOTING YOUTH VACCINATIONS
The Return to School Roadmap builds on the President’s call to increase COVID-19 vaccinations among adolescents as students return to school. Vaccinations are the leading public health strategy to end the pandemic. They are also the best way to prevent outbreaks, so students can return to and remain in classrooms.
Last week, among other new actions to get Americans vaccinated and slow the spread of the delta variant, the President called on school districts nationwide to hold at least one pop-up vaccination clinic over the coming weeks, and the Administration directed pharmacies participating in the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program to prioritize youth vaccinations and host clinics at schools and postsecondary institutions.
This week, the Administration announced additional actions to help kids go back to school safely, including:
- Incorporating COVID-19 vaccination into sports physicals for student athletes this summer and fall, with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, and 10 other sports and medicine organizations issuing a consensus statement to all their members urging medical providers to ask about COVID-19 vaccine status during sports physicals, and, where available, administer the COVID-19 vaccine.
- Sending pediatricians to “Back to School Nights” to get communities vaccinated against COVID-19, with the National PTA calling on its 22,000 local member PTAs and parent leaders nationwide to host community conversations about getting vaccinated at Back to School parent meetings.
- Providing schools with more resources to host pop-up vaccine clinics as students return to school, with a guide for hosting school-based clinics, template letters and text messages for school leaders to use in sending messages home for students and families about the vaccine, resources for teachers to use in discussing vaccines with students and parents, and materials parent leaders can use as part of community conversations on the vaccine.
- Providing institutions with more resources to host pop-up vaccine clinics as students return to campus, with a “Vax to School” College Checklist to increase awareness of and access to the vaccine -- following the nearly 900 colleges in the COVID-19 College Challenge that have committed to building vaccination rates.
- Launching a Back to School “Week of Action” (August 7-15) to get more young people vaccinated, with more than 90 youth groups, faith-based organizations, and schools hosting over 200 events and supportive canvassing, phone banks, and text banks.
