The US Food and Drug Administration authorizes Pfizer/BioNTech to provide COVID-19 vaccines to children aged 5 to 11, which means that one of the major coronavirus vaccines is open to a new age group, thus ending families with children in that age group Anxious waiting.Although children are less likely to have severe symptoms of COVID-19, they can still contract and spread the disease.
The number of cases and deaths among children in the United States peaked in September, which was the worst month for this age group, which has more than 1 million new cases in the country.
The FDA authorization allows 28 million new people in the United States to be vaccinated. Opinion polls in September showed that about one-third of parents said they wanted to vaccinate their children between the ages of 5 and 11 “immediately” after authorization.
Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccines can be used in this group under emergency use authorization. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration fully approves the administration for people 16 years and older, but it is still considered an emergency product for people between 5 and 16 years of age.
California stated that it plans to immediately add the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of vaccines required for schooling for school-age children and adolescents after it is fully approved. New York State is also considering a similar requirement.
The other two COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States, namely Moderna and Johnson & Johnson’s vaccines, are only available to people over 18 years of age. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration was close to approving the Moderna vaccine for teenagers between 12 and 17 years of age, but postponed the decision to carefully study data on rare risks of heart inflammation. Johnson & Johnson is still experimenting with younger age groups.