Kids as young as six months old can get the COVID-19 vaccine starting on Tuesday.
A clinic is being held in Windsor at the library from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. where kids ages 5 and older can get the vaccine. No appointment is necessary.
Leah Perez was first in line at Windsor's Public Library. She showed up an hour early to wait for her daughter Evelyn to be vaccinated against COVID-19 for the first time.
Get top local stories in Connecticut delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC Connecticut's News Headlines newsletter.
“Evelyn is four and we’ve just been waiting. We’ve been really locked down for a long time now so we are waiting for the Moderna shot. We are very excited. We wanted to be the very first ones here to make sure we got a shot in our arm today," Perez, of Windsor, said.
Perez said she's felt like the word has started to move on, but for her family, having a child that wasn't eligible held them back.
Area medical centers and pediatricians will also soon be offering the shots.
Local
The Pfizer vaccine is available for children six months old to four years old. There are three doses over the course of three months.
Pfizer's vaccine reduced the risk of symptomatic infection by 80 percent in that age group, but that was based on a very small number of cases.
Moderna is approved for children up to five years old. There are two doses that would be one month apart.
For the Moderna vaccine, it's shown to be 51 percent effective in preventing illness for kids six months to two years old and 37 percent effective for kids two to five years old.
“I do wish this happened earlier in the fight against COVID because it looks like COVID has become a distant memory to a lot of people. It's still here, it definitely is still here," said Hartford Healthcare Dr. Ulysses Wu.
Wu also says people have reached a COVID fatigue including vaccinations. Two hundred thousand doses were given out in mid-April of 2021. Last week, 574 people got a shot. The statewide total of people vaccinated is at 76 percent.
On Tuesday morning, the White House's COVID Response Team is expected to discuss the vaccine for the youngest age group.
