BREAKING: Coronavirus vaccines for kids 5 to 11 in the U.S. are a step closer with an advisory panel’s recommendation. Final CDC decision could come within hours.
FILE - This October 2021, photo provided by Pfizer shows kid-size doses of its COVID-19 vaccine in Puurs, Belgium.
If the CDC’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, signs off as expected, it will mark the first opportunity for Americans under 12 to get the powerful protection of any COVID-19 vaccine. “There are children in the second grade who have never experienced a normal school year,” Walensky said. “Pediatric vaccination has the power to help us change all of that.”Pediatricians in parts of the country are ready to start getting shots into little arms as soon as they get the final OK, as Pfizer already has begun shipping millions of doses to states, doctors’ offices and pharmacies.
“I have vaccinated my kids,” said CDC adviser Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot of Vanderbilt University, saying she wouldn’t recommend something for other families unless she was comfortable with it for her own. “We have seen the devastation of this disease.” Pfizer’s kid shots contain a third of the vaccine dose that’s already been used to vaccinate millions of people 12 and older. The 5- to 11-year-olds will receive two shots, three weeks apart, the same schedule as everyone else -- but a smaller amount in each shot, using a smaller needle.
That study wasn’t large enough to detect any extremely rare side effects, such as the heart inflammation that occasionally occurs after the second full-strength dose, mostly in young men and teen boys. Regulators ultimately decided the benefits from vaccination outweigh the potential that younger kids getting a smaller dose also might experience that rare risk.
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