Hoboken Starts Vaccinating Teens This Week; Secaucus Not Yet

SECAUCUS, NJ — The city of Hoboken announced Tuesday that it will start offering the Pfizer vaccine to Hoboken residents age 12-15 as early as this week, and parents can sign up now.

However, the Rec Center vaccine site run by the town of Secaucus is not ready to offer the Pfizer vaccine to children 12-15, said Secaucus town administrator Gary Jeffas, who supervises the site.

"I do not have a final answer on this yet," Jeffas told Patch Tuesday afternoon. "Since the decision was just made to allow this age group to be vaccinated with Pfizer, we will need to confer with our Health Officer, who deals with a few towns, and speak with our vaccination team. I am hoping to have some better direction on this over the next few days."

"Additionally, we have generally not been getting (the) Pfizer vaccine at our site, so will have to see if the supply of Pfizer makes its way to us," he said.

Also, on Wednesday, May 12 walk-in vaccines will be available at the Secaucus Rec Center from 9 am - 12 noon. You will receive the Moderna shot. No appointment needed.

On Monday night, the FDA approved the Pfizer vaccine for emergency use for kids 12 and over. However, the CDC's federal vaccine advisory committee is expected to give more guidance and recommendations on Wednesday.

The Hoboken Patch has the list of places in Hoboken that will begin giving the Pfizer vaccine to teens this week: Hoboken Patch

"The ability for children ages 12-15 to get vaccinated is welcome news, and we are glad to partner with our local pharmacies to expand our clinics so our younger residents can protect themselves," said Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla on Tuesday. "I encourage parents to assist their children in signing up for an appointment utilizing the options provided through the city."

Rutgers pediatric infectious disease expert Dr. David Cennimo said the following Tuesday after the FDA's approval:

“The Pfizer vaccine had a great track record of safety and success since the initial adult trials, and I see no reason why this would not continue in children,” said Cennimo, an assistant professor of medicine in adult and pediatric infectious diseases at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. “We are seeing an increasing number of COVID-19 cases in children, especially older ones, which may be due to increased infectivity of some of the variants."

The Pfizer vaccine trial for teens only enrolled 2,260 adolescents 12 to 15 in the United States; learn more direct from Pfizer here: https://www.pfizer.com/news/pr...

But pharmaceutical companies have said that childhood trials are usually much smaller than their initial adult trials, and that they can determine safety and efficacy using the adult trial models.

The adult Pfizer vaccine trial enrolled more than 44,000 people worldwide.

"We have an understanding of safety and efficacy of the vaccine of 12-15 year-olds included in that study," said Jerica Pitts, director of global media relations for Pfizer.

As Patch reported, Rutgers is also a clinical trial site for the global Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine in children ages 6 months to 11 years. Rutgers is currently seeking children to be enrolled in that trial.

In total, 4,644 children ages 6 months to 11 worldwide will be enrolled in the trials for the Pfizer vaccine.

Learn more: Rutgers Now Enrolling Children 6 Months And Up In Pfizer Trial

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