With federal regulators poised to give approval in the coming days, Colorado is set to receive its first shipment of vaccines for 5-to-11-year-olds as early as Friday, and the state could begin administering doses to eligible kids by Nov. 5, officials said Thursday.

Gov. Jared Polis told reporters the state hopes to vaccinate 50% of this soon-to-be-eligible age group by Jan. 31. The rollout will begin primarily at large sites and events, the governor said, and will devolve further to individual school districts and to individual providers in the coming weeks.

“We are now waiting for final approval from (the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), which we expect next week,” the governor said. “As a father of a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old, I’m particularly grateful. I know there are lots of parents out there (happy) their kids are only weeks away from being protected from this virus.”

There are roughly 480,000 5-to-11-year-olds in Colorado, said Diana Herrero, a disease control official within the state Department of Public Health and Environment. The state will receive approximately 171,000 doses of the Pfizer shot in its initial allotment from the CDC. The state will have ample supply of doses to meet the new age group, Heather Roth, the immunization branch chief at the health agency, told The Gazette this week. According to its website, the state has already partnered with Children’s Hospital Colorado to begin offering clinics on Nov. 5.

“I don’t think we’re in a supply-demand place where we would need to ration vaccine,” Roth said. “We’re going to have enough, even over that first week, to vaccinate everybody who wants one.” 

In all, roughly 384 providers statewide are able to distribute pediatric Pfizer doses, once they’re approved and distributed. Every school district in the state has been offered the chance to play a part in administration, Polis said, though he didn’t describe how many had taken up that offer. 

Roth said the response from districts had been “unsurprisingly” mixed. How schools should address the pandemic has been a political lightning rod statewide since the beginning of the pandemic. In perhaps the most extreme case, an escalating disagreement over masking in Douglas County has pitted the school district against its new health department.

But Polis said the introduction of pediatric vaccines to now cover all school-aged children may given districts who require masks the ability to loosen those orders. He said districts who move forward with providing vaccines would collect permission slips from parents. Though asked, he did not address whether pediatric vaccines would at some point be required.

In an email after the governor’s comments, a spokesman for Denver Public Schools said the district would continue to rely on the advice of its public health experts in determining masking going forward.

The plan as laid out by Polis on Thursday bears some striking similarities to how the vaccine was distributed in the spring, when the state’s entire adult population was eligible. That effort, albeit far larger in terms of eligible recipients, initially hinged on large-scale, drive-through events. Though pharmacies and individual providers played a role, the state leaned more heavily on large parking lots to rush doses into arms.

As uptake slowed in early summer, the focus turned, and the state began to rely more heavily on individual providers – like primary care physicians – to reach the hesitant. 

It appears the state will follow a similar, if much more accelerated, track with children. Roth said partnerships with primary care clinics in particular will be much more widespread and significant for children than it initially was for adults.

The exact details of where clinics will be offered or what providers are approved were not provided Thursday; officials said further information would be released shortly. A list on the health department’s website includes 26 providers currently accepting appointments. 

Herrero said the state had partnered with museums, zoos and libraries, among others, to help drive pediatric uptake; the effort will target where families already are, she and Polis said. Roth hinted at similar collaborations with the state’s professional sports teams. 

Though children and adolescents have typically been significantly less susceptible to severe COVID-19 cases than older residents, they’ve still been affected, officials have said. During the latest surge, 5-to-17-year-olds have consistently had the highest case rates; the surge has coincided with students’ return to school.

Eric France, the state’s chief medical officer, told reporters Thursday that the state had seen a 400% increase in pediatric COVID-19 infections in August and September compared to the two previous months. Lalit Bajaj, a Children’s Hospital physician, said the system had treated roughly 2,000 pediatric COVID-19 cases throughout the course of the pandemic.

COVID-19’s spread among children has ramifications beyond its impact to school or to the kids’ health.

“Children can bring home COVID from school and infect others in the home,” France said.

Pfizer’s pediatric vaccine is a third of the dose of the one given to adults, he said. It’s 91% effective in blocking infection and nearly completely effective in preventing severe illness. It, like the adult series, is a two-dose regimen spread three weeks apart.