Mason Summers was among the first Watson Chapel High School students to be vaccinated against covid-19 on campus Thursday, not that he was eager for it.
"I didn't want to take it all at first, to be honest," the 16-year-old junior said. "My parents were getting it, so I just decided to."
Like most who are vaccinated, Summers waited 15 minutes inside the vaccination area -- in this case, a classroom -- after his shot so that nurses could make sure he didn't experience any immediate side effects, the very thing he feared about the vaccine.
"I was thinking it was going to do something to me, make me feel bad," he said. "But I don't know yet."
Summers, however, put his fears to the side and joined a number of high school students helping Arkansans work toward Gov. Asa Hutchinson's goal of 50% of the population with at least one dose of covid-19 vaccine within 90 days. Hutchinson announced the goal during his weekly covid-19 update Tuesday.
It's been reported the state will likely turn down its weekly allocation of doses in an effort to use the remaining ones. Of the more than 2.5 million doses Arkansas has received through Thursday, 70% have been given, or 1,777,556.
Twenty students at Watson Chapel took the covid shot within the first 45 minutes of the clinic, which met school district nurse Rose Sullivent's expectations.
"Most of the kids were hesitant," she said. "Most of them are scared of shots and not sure.
"For the most part, every person I know that has had the vaccine has not had any bad side effects from it. I would highly recommend it."
Doctor's Order's Pharmacy conducted clinics at Pine Bluff, Watson Chapel and Dollarway high schools on Thursday, offering the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for students and faculty members who had not yet been vaccinated. Earlier this week, Jefferson Regional Medical Center conducted a clinic for White Hall High School students and faculty.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved the Pfizer vaccine for those 16 and older. Pfizer is awaiting FDA clearance to administer shots to children as young as 12.
"We just wanted to make that opportunity available for students so that they and their parents could make that decision," White Hall schools Superintendent Doug Dorris said. "If they bring it down to 12, hopefully we'll have an opportunity to offer a clinic to kids again."
At Watson Chapel, the excitement level over vaccination was much higher for Kayle Williams, 17, than for her classmate Summers. Williams said her mother having covid-19 was a motivating factor to take the shot.
"I was very excited, just in case it worked, just to be on the safe side," Williams said.
Doubts about the vaccine crossed her mind, she said, but she leaned more toward taking it for protection.
The shot, she said, "was a warm feeling, but a good feeling."
Both Summers and Williams will take their booster shots in three weeks.
Timothy Bailey, 17, took his second shot at Dollarway High School on Thursday, and it felt to him like the first one, which he received at a local grocery store.
"When I took the first one, I didn't feel nothing at all," Bailey said. "Since I took this one, I didn't feel nothing."
Bailey had his fears about the shot more than three weeks ago, only because it was his first time to take it. People as young as 16 have been eligible to be vaccinated against covid-19 in Arkansas since March 30.
For his first dose, Bailey said the doctor told him to breathe so he wouldn't be nervous. He appeared much calmer Thursday, closing his eyes as Doctor's Order's pharmacist Sarah Stephenson administered the shot in his left arm.
"I encourage those in my age and grade to take it," Bailey said. "They say, 'We're scared.' I say, 'What are you being scared about? It's just like taking a flu shot. Your arm is going to be a little sore, but that's about it. You've got nothing to be scared about.'"
Tenth-grader Adraina Finch, 16, heeded the call and took her first dose. She said she waited a long time to be vaccinated.
"I could feel the shot, but I wasn't nervous," she said.
