Four per cent of children aged five to 11 vaccinated in Interior Health

KAMLOOPS — As of Dec. 6, four per cent of children between five and 11 years old in the Interior Health region have received their first-dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Tuesday (Dec. 7) morning, kids were getting their shot at the Northills Mall clinic on the North Shore.

“Honestly, I’m just happy I got the vaccine,” said Sara, an 11-year-old Kamloops girl, adding that she feels more protected with her vaccine shot.

Interior Health Medical Health Office and physician, Dr. Carol Fenton, stopped by to administer the vaccines. She says getting your children vaccinated is important because they are active members in the community.

“They can transmit infections in society. Anyone who has a child in daycare knows this very well. So it’s really important that we get those children protection from the infection,” Dr. Fenton told CFJC News.

Interior Health has added measures to ease any anxiety children might have, such as separating waiting areas and placing them in these private vaccine spaces. But on Tuesday, there were no nervous kids in sight.

Sara says she wasn’t nervous to get it.

“Not as much as my brother,” she added.

London and Grace, two sisters in the five to 11 age group, are glad they got their shot too.

“Now we can keep everyone safe,” Grace said.

“Yeah, now we won’t get COVID,” London added.

And moms and dads are feeling confident about their decision to get their children vaccinated, too.

Rob, Sara’s father, hopes it will help with transmission at his daughter’s school.

“She was off for about a week,” he said. “They were all quarantined, her class, because a couple of kids in her class got sick. So it makes it that much more easier to decide to get the vaccine.”

For London and Grace’s mom, Erin, says she wants to keep her kids safe.

“But we also want to do our part to keep the community safe. We would like to eventually have things open back up so that we can have access to all of the services and the community events that we know and love,” she explained.

With the Delta and Omicron variants circulating, Dr. Fenton says research suggests that vaccines still work against all of the COVID-19 variants.

“And it’s really important that we limit transmissions and infections as much as possible to prevent the emergence of these variants,” Dr. Fenton said.

“It’s a really good thing that we are getting vaccinated, and it’s a good thing,” London said.