COVID-19 booster shot rollout moving along in Montgomery County

KING OF PRUSSIA, Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- The COVID-19 booster shot rollout is chugging along, as hundreds of eligible people got their third shot at the Montgomery County clinic in King of Prussia on Monday.

"I am a healthcare worker as well. I just wanted to make sure to protect myself my family, especially my elderly parents and in-laws," said Viraj Parikh of Villanova.

"I mean, that's what everybody should want to do, be safe," said Frances Ligons of King of Prussia.

The CDC authorized the mixing and matching of booster shots last Thursday, allowing people to choose which third shot they receive.

"As we're seeing with this vaccine, the antibody level is dropping over time and by getting that booster dose, you're getting to the higher antibody level that is protected," said Dr. Debra Powell, Chief of Infectious Disease at Tower Health.

According to the 6abc Data Journalism team: In Pennsylvania, more than 340,000 booster shots have been administered so far, or about 4.5% of the fully vaccinated. In New Jersey, 6.6% of those fully vaccinated received booster shots and in Delaware, 7.6% of the fully vaccinated have received boosters.

"I believe that you shouldn't take any chances catching it or spreading it, and I wanted to get things back to normal so I can go out and not worry about people coughing in my face and things of that nature," said Calvin Ligons of King of Prussia.

As for the COVID vaccine and kids, federal health regulators announced kid-size doses of the Pfizer vaccine appears highly effective at preventing symptomatic infections in elementary school children.

The FDA will convene a panel of experts Tuesday to discuss whether the vaccine should be authorized for children ages 5 to 11.

"The idea of immunizing the children is we get to that heard immunity level," said Dr. Powell. "So we need to have a large proportion of our population vaccinated and by not vaccinating the 5-12 level, it is hard to reach that goal."