OCPS medical advisory committee hosts Q&A on vaccines, pandemic

Pfizer expanded to children 12 and up

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Orange County Public School’s Medical Advisory Committee met on Thursday to answer questions from parents and employees about vaccines and the pandemic.

One of the first questions was about face masks for the new school year in the fall.

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“The board is not making an immediate determination around face masks policy with eight days left of school. They will have some discussion and probably a work session around that during the summer because we have to have some determination for next year,” Superintendent Dr. Barbara Jenkins explained.

Doctors spoke about the importance of getting students vaccinated now that children 12 and older are eligible for the Pfizer vaccine.

“We know how the Pfizer vaccine works, we have good data that supports efficacy, just the other day we learned that you can take it from 12 years old and up, which is wonderfully exciting,” Dr. Annette Nielsen with Tree House Pediatrics said.

Parents also asked about herd immunity.

“There’s something called the herd immunity threshold and what that is, is an estimated percentage of the population that’s required to be immune before you see a drop of the disease,” said Dr. Regan Schwartz, chief of emergency medicine with AdventHealth.

OCPS is holding two vaccine events on Saturday, May 15, at Wekiva High School and East River High School from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Students younger than 18 will have to bring a parent or guardian.


About the Author:

Ezzy Castro is a multimedia journalist on News 6's morning team who has a passion for telling the stories of the people in the Central Florida community. Ezzy worked at WFOR CBS4 in South Florida and KBMT in Beaumont, Texas, where she covered Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Being from Miami, Ezzy loves Cuban coffee and croquetas!