Baltimore City to provide free COVID-19 vaccines to children and adults on Fridays

BALTIMORE — The Baltimore City Health Department will offer new COVID-19 vaccines to children and adults at no cost.

The offer extends to adults who are uninsured or underinsured.

Now that COVID-19 infections are on the rise, the health department wants to make sure that everyone is staying safe.

People seem to have mixed feelings about COVID-19 vaccinations.

Enoch Cook is in a high-risk group and says he is on the fence about getting another inoculation.

“I just got the flu shot, but jury is out if I’m going to get another COVID shot,” he said. “I’ve gotten four already.”

The Baltimore City Health Department announced on Tuesday that it had received the first supply of the new vaccine for children and adults.

“This is the only vaccine we have now, and it covers the strain we have most dominant now,” Melina Turtle with the Baltimore City Health Department.

Turtle said the vaccine will be available at the department’s clinic at 1001 E. Fayette Street, and free on Fridays through November.

“With the cold season coming—and we did see COVID infections on the rise in the past season, and they are doing that now as well, infections and hospitalizations, we just want everyone to be protected,” she said.

The vaccine shots will be made available to children as young as six months old. Given that there has been a spike in flu cases and RSV cases, too, some parents say that they’re ready to roll up their sleeves.

“We are a big vaccine family,” mother Suze Anderson said. “So, we are all up to date with our vaccines. WE still mask up in some areas.”

In the end, it’s “just about mitigating risks,” she said.