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Georgia families struggle to get their youngest children vaccinated

Parents of children five and under say it's been a battle to find a COVID-19 vaccine appointment

ATLANTA — With federal health leaders granting approval for COVID-19 vaccines to kids as young as six months old, many families across the metro Atlanta area are eager to get their children protection, but actually finding an appointment to get the vaccine has proven challenging.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended coronavirus vaccines for children younger than 5 on Saturday. Since then, families have been trying to book an appointment.

From calling their pediatrician daily to scouring social media for places to get the pediatric dose, parents said it's been a lot of waiting and searching.

“We’ve been forgotten about for so long because everybody's out living their lives that we have. There's a lot of us who don't have a fully vaccinated family," parent Vanessa Garrett said.

The parent of a four-year-old, Lyse Herrera, added that it feels like their children have been forgotten.

“I felt like it was we've known that this is coming forever and then nothing," she said.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Georgia Department of Public Health said doses were expected to be delivered on June 20 to more than 225 providers. They say 37,000 doses of Pfizer have been pre-ordered and 14,000 doses of Moderna, but families said their pediatricians still don't have them.

“My first call was to my pediatrician, and they told me they put me on a waitlist to call when they had the doses available. I still haven't heard from them yet, said parent Amnesty Hadley.

Meanwhile, pharmacies like CVS announced it would begin giving out the vaccine to children on Tuesday. Walgreens said it expects to start administering the shots on Saturday at select locations.

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