White House Deploys Jill Biden In Opening Push To Vaccinate Young Children

The White House deployed first lady Jill Biden in its opening push to vaccinate young children Monday, with the first lady visiting a COVID-19 vaccination clinic at a Virginia elementary school.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) panel of vaccine experts voted unanimously Tuesday to recommend the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children 5-11 years old. White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden is an “incredibly credible” voice for encouraging parents across the country to vaccinate their children.

“She is incredibly credible,” @KJP46 says, answering a question about the wisdom of having @FLOTUS lead the administration’s child COVID-19 vaccination effort. https://t.co/lJxRqqFm2n

— darlene superville (@dsupervilleap) November 8, 2021

The CDC and FDA said young children face similar potential side effects to the vaccine compared to children older than 12, who have been approved for vaccination for months. They found the risk of myocarditis and other effects to be lower than the risk of COVID-19, however. Children typically experience less severe cases when they contract COVID-19, and children under 18 make up .0007% of U.S. COVID-19 deaths. (RELATED: Vaccinating Kids Isn’t The Way To End The Pandemic, Experts Say)

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U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy joined Biden on the trip, decrying misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine that parents across the country have been allegedly exposed to.

“We know that already, as soon as news of the vaccines being authorized and recommended came through, many parents saw their inboxes, their text threads, and their social media feeds being flooded with false claims about the vaccine,” Murthy said. “We believe that every parent has a right to the facts so they can make decisions for their children based on accurate scientific information.”

“That’s why we’re asking parents to be careful about where they get their information from, and to seek answers to their questions from credible sources, like their doctors, children’s hospitals, their local departments of health and the CDC,” he added.