Summer camp is back; vaccine for 12-15 year-olds will help

Last summer, camps were either canceled or shifted online. This summer, they are returning with the same safety precautions children are seeing at school.

The Overlake School in Redmond will offer part-time and full-time camps this summer. They will focus on outdoor programs and will keep children together in pods. The campus covers 73 acres, so there is plenty of space to explore.

“Demand has been through the roof. Our middle school camps are 98% sold out. We only have a handful of spots remaining,” said Nate Edmunds, summer program director of The Overlake School.

The Overlake School offers camps for children in third grade through eighth grade. The approval of the Pfizer vaccine for children 12 years old and older will offer added protection.

“Most of our campers are still going to be too young to get it. But our counselors, we have counselors and interns, and they are all ninth to 12th grade. They’re in that age where a lot of them are going to be able to get the vaccine now. That is really significant,” said Edmunds.

The Overlake School doctor, Dr. Samantha Hillyer, is paying close attention to the approval of the vaccine.

“It does add a protection layer for the students who can be vaccinated. Our summer camp specifically goes down to third grade, so we won’t be able to capture all of our students here,” said Hillyer. “Any vaccination helps everybody, so it will help with our counselors and the faculty and staff that will also be helping with it.”

The Department of Health stated there are 378,000 12-15-year-olds in Washington.

Right now, there are about 650,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine already in the state.

Dr. Jeff Duchin is on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee that voted to recommend the vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds today.

“I would anticipate it would make people a whole lot happier going to summer camp if they knew they were protected against COVID-19, and as many people as possible in their camp environment were protected against COVID-19,” said Duchin.

The CDC director signed off on the use of the Pfizer vaccine for 12-15-year-olds on Wednesday afternoon.

The Western States Scientific Safety Review Workgroup met Wednesday night to review it, and the vaccine was approved for immediate use for children 12 and older in the state.

Cox Media Group