BALTIMORE — With students returning to classrooms and fall and winter on the horizon, Baltimore health leaders are urging children to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and the flu.
The Baltimore City Health Department is preparing the latest round of COVID-19 booster vaccine doses for residents.
“There’s a new dominant strain emerging, and getting this vaccine today will help prevent it from spreading within your home,” said Rebecca Dineen, deputy commissioner for the Baltimore City Health Department.
As new strains of COVID-19 emerged in the spring and summer, the Food and Drug Administration approved improved vaccines.
COVID-19 Vaccination Clinics in Baltimore
The Baltimore City Health Department announced that to help residents, especially those under the age of 12, it will host a free vaccination clinic every Friday from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm at Sacred Heart Church, 600 Conkling Street.
This clinic is open to anyone over the age of 12. No appointment is necessary.
“We don’t want our children to miss school, and getting the COVID-19 vaccine will help prevent them from missing school,” Dineen said.
The clinic is being offered to residents with or without insurance as a way to protect families and young people from the most severe effects of COVID-19.
Dineen said the updated vaccines are most important for people who have never received a vaccine or the latest booster shot.
“The thing is, you’re much more likely to get long COVID-19, which nobody wants,” Dineen said. “Long COVID-19 causes fatigue, it damages all of your organs. You don’t want to get long COVID-19. So if you don’t get vaccinated, you’re twice as likely to get long COVID-19.”
A list of other vaccination clinics in Baltimore City is here.
Long COVID Impact
Researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Pediatric Post-COVID Clinic studied children with long COVID and found evidence of orthostatic intolerance, a condition that can cause children to feel dizzy, have headaches, or experience brain confusion as a result of COVID.
“In this study, we looked back at the patients we’ve seen and looked at the development of a condition called orthostatic intolerance in children with long COVID,” said Dr. Laura Malone, director of the Pediatric Post-COVID Clinic at the Kennedy Krieger Institute.
Doctors say there are treatments for children with long COVID-19 beyond getting and continuing to get vaccinated.
“It can improve over time,” Malone said, “sometimes it takes months or years, but sometimes we can get some intervention sooner than that to help restore function and better control the symptoms.”
