I’m happy to hear so many parents are planning to vaccinate their children younger than 5 years old against COVID-19.

Among other age groups, vaccines have been safe and highly effective at preventing severe illness.

Now COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for everyone starting at 6 months of age.

For parents of those younger than 3 years old, the best place to seek COVID-19 vaccination is your child’s health care provider.

That’s because retail pharmacies are able to vaccinate ages 3 and older.

If your child’s health care provider doesn’t offer COVID-19 vaccination at this time, they may be able to direct you to a provider that does.

Here are some other options for parents of kids younger than 3:

• Our Vaccine Finder at azhealth.gov/FindVaccine has filters allowing you to see providers offering vaccines for kids as young as 6 months.
• Your local health department will have information on clinics that can vaccinate children younger than 3. Maricopa County Public Health is offering vaccines for children as young as 6 months at its public health clinics. Its multilingual CARES Team is available for questions at 602-506-6767 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday-Friday. Pima County also is offering vaccines for children as young as 6 months at public health clinics. Appointments are recommended, but not required, at its clinics, whose locations, hours, and phone numbers can be found at pima.gov/covid19vaccine.
• Our bilingual Spanish and English COVID-19 Vaccine hotline at 844-542-8201 (select Option 8 to speak with a navigator) can connect you with community vaccination clinics funded by our Health Equity Office that offer vaccinations to those as young as 6 months.
• Federally qualified health centers offer vaccination to the youngest children. You can locate one near you by visiting aachc.org/find-a-community-health-center.

Editor’s note: Don Herrington is interim director of the Arizona Department of Health Services. He has been with the agency since 2000. Visit azdhs.gov.