For Health Care Providers
COVID-19 Vaccination Guidance

Overview of the COVID-19 vaccination schedule

For people who are NOT moderately or severely immunocompromised:

• At the time of initial vaccination, depending on vaccine product, children ages 6 months to 4 years are recommended to receive two or three mRNA vaccine doses.
• People ages 5 years and older are recommended to receive one dose of an updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 vaccine.
• People ages 12 years and older have the option of receiving either the updated (2024-2025 formula) mRNA (Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech) or updated (2024-2025 formula) Novavax vaccine.

For people who are moderately or severely immunocompromised:

• People ages 6 months and older, who are immunocompromised should have three doses with at least one of the doses being the new vaccine, may also receive additional doses based on their clinical situation and should talk to their health care provider.

Vaccine dosage and administration

In general, CDC recommends that people receive the age-appropriate vaccine product and dosage based on their age on the day of vaccination in accordance with the recommended intervals for that age group. If a person moves to an older age group between vaccine doses, they should receive the vaccine product and dosage for the older age group for all subsequent doses with one exception: Children who transition from age 4 years to age 5 years during the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination series may complete three-dose series with either the 2024-2025 COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine formulation for ages 6 months to 4 years or COVID-19 vaccine formulation for ages 5 to 11 years. For more details visit CDC: Transitioning from a younger to older age group.

Vaccination reminders

Vaccination reminders are critical to ensure compliance with vaccine dosing intervals and to achieve optimal vaccine effectiveness.

Use these tips for COVID-19 vaccine reminders:

• Use reminder/recall systems through MIIC or your electronic health record (her). In MIIC, utilize the Client Follow-Up (CFU) feature to learn which of your clients are recommended/overdue for vaccine. For user guidance on CFU in MIIC, please visit Client Follow-Up.
• Partner with MDH to text your clients who are recommended or overdue for COVID-19 vaccine. The process of getting this activity set up and implemented is very simple and the maintenance is automated. MDH has successfully implemented texting with several organizations. Please reach out to the MIIC Help Desk to get started. For more information refer to MIIC Texting Program Reminder/Recall Using Text Messages (PDF).
• When needed, make sure each person getting vaccinated knows how long they must wait in between their vaccinations, and make every attempt to schedule the next dose appointment at the time of the first dose.
• If the patient has a smartphone and/or access to the internet, ask them to sign up for the Docket to securely access their full immunization history in MIIC. For sign up instructions, refer to Docket and MIIC Immunization Records.