Pictured are members of the Chautauqua County Board of Health during a meeting this week. Photo by Gregory Bacon

MAYVILLE — Not a lot of families have gotten their very young children vaccinated for COVID-19 at public clinics.

According to Chautauqua County Health Department data discussed Thursday by the county Board of Health, 19 children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years old received their first dose at a clinic July 13 at Jamestown Community College. On July 14 at the State University at Fredonia, 23 children of those same ages received their first dose.

Those were the first two clinics by the county that offered the COVID vaccine for the very young.

Dr. Tariq Khan, health board member, said the low numbers aren’t too surprising.

“The numbers are not any different than what we are hearing across the Western New York counties,” he said. “Uptake is slow. Parents are hesitant.”

Khan predicts more parents will want to get their children vaccinated in the fall.

“Parents are almost kind of sitting on the fence. The general attitude we have in the nation is that COVID is gone even though that the news says otherwise,” he said.

Since the COVID-19 vaccine was approved for children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years of age in mid-June, 110 first doses have been given in Chautauqua County, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control.

Health Board member Dr. Elizabeth Kidder said her office has provided vaccines to children whose families had requested it as soon as it was available. Now that that wave is through, the next step is education.

“It’s about treating this vaccine like any other vaccine and fighting the tide of anti-vaccination that has hit us over the last 10 years,” she said.

Kidder said she hopes the COVID vaccine ends up being part of a routine for people when they get vaccinated.

“When you trust your doctor and they’re telling you to get the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) and you do and they have the COVID right there and it’s one of the five … that’s how we do pediatrics,” she said.

The situation isn’t solely a Chautauqua County problem. On July 14, Politico reported 399,650 children under 5 out of nearly 19 million such children nationwide have received a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Many states have begun ordering fewer doses of the early childhood COVID vaccine. Many of those states with a slow start to their early childhood vaccination programs also have low vaccination rates for children between the age of 5 and 12. Through July 22, 27.9% of Chautauqua County children between 5 and 12 have been vaccinated.

According to the county’s website, there are vaccination clinics scheduled for Aug. 10 at JCC; Aug 11 at SUNY Fredonia; and Aug. 18 at Jamestown High School. Preregistration is required at chqgov.com/public-health/public-health or by calling 1-866-604-6789.

Health Board President Dr. Lillian Ney said it’s important for people to get vaccinated against all diseases. She noted that New York state has just reported its first case of polio in nearly a decade. That individual was not vaccinated and has developed paralysis.

“Sometimes when we start talking about vaccinations, for some reason or other it gets to be a difficult word. People get different images in their mind about what vaccination is going to do. … This is kind of serious stuff,” she said.

Ney also again expressed her disappointment that earlier this year the county legislature voted against a $75,000 grant that would have addressed vaccine hesitancy.

“We don’t want people in our county to suffer from lack of necessary life-saving and disability-saving vaccinations,” she said.