THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES PUSH TO GET UNDER-5 VACCINES OUT — Health officials have swung into action to get shots in the arms of the 20 million children under 5 years old that became eligible for a Covid-19 vaccine last month. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Pulse that just over 5 million doses had been delivered around the country as of Friday. That's an impressive start, but public health officials always expected an early spike because of pent-up demand from families who have been itching to get their young children vaccinated for years. Another significant group of parents will almost surely be set against getting their young kids vaccinated at all. (Nearly 70 percent of kids ages 5 to11 are still unvaccinated.) And then there's a third group: families who may take a little more time and convincing. The CDC has identified the providers in its Vaccines for Children program as key to reaching those families. They consist of private and public practitioners registered with the CDC to administer subsidized vaccines to children who qualify, free of cost. The agency expects that younger children will get the shot at their primary care office instead of at pharmacies and sees the VFC program as critical to ensuring the vaccine is equitably distributed. In a recent survey, 73 percent of VFC providers said they intended to register to vaccinate children under 5 for Covid-19. The CDC wants to get more on board and is appealing to practitioners to register to administer the vaccine, use every opportunity to offer it and consider vaccinating outside their regular patient group. In an email shared with Pulse, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told VFC providers they could directly impact hesitant parents' confidence in the newly authorized vaccines. "As the most trusted source of information for parents and caregivers, your strong recommendation is critical to increasing confidence in COVID-19 vaccines and ensuring children get vaccinated," she wrote. 'A MISTAKE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS ' — That's how Atul Gawande, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, described how western nations' flagging financial commitment to tackle the global pandemic to POLITICO's Erin Banco in a recent interview. "Covid is not over," Gawande said. "It is a continuing recurrent illness that we will be living with, at least for the next few years to come. … We need to make sure that the health systems at home and around the world have the basic tools to respond." Gawande spoke with POLITICO in a wide-ranging interview about the future of the global health office at USAID and how it plans to deliver key services to low-income countries and vulnerable populations at a time when the world faces multiple crises. After Congress failed this spring to sign off on new funding for USAID to continue its global Covid work, agency officials now worry whether lawmakers, who are balancing inflation and an election year, will approve the proposals put forward in President Joe Biden's budget for global health efforts. "Public health lives in a boom-bust cycle where when the disease is at its worst is when people are willing to make an investment. And then when the tide has gone out, people … decide, 'Now I don't have to worry about it,'" Gawande said. "But the tide is coming back."
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