The FDA’s key vaccine advisory committee finally approved Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 after a long wait for approval by the parents & the school administrations as the schools are opening on new academic session amid banned mask mandate in some states.
According to Pfizer, it will be a low-dose vaccine for kids and also a third of the dosage of adults as a booster. On trial, it is proved to be more than 90% effective in preventing asymptomatic infection. In the third dose, the booster will be injected into adults with more risks or older ages. The FDA panel granted the approval with 17 supporting votes and one abstention.
Dr. Amanda Cohn, a member of the committee said, “To me the question is pretty clear, we don’t want children to be dying from Covid, even if it is far fewer children than adults and we don’t want them in the ICU.”
After getting the official clearance from FDA for emergency use of the shots, the CDC is planning now schedules to review the pediatric doses within the next week. It is expected that they would order for public distribution immediately thereafter.
The Biden administration said around 28 million doses have been produced already which is considered to be good enough to vaccinate all 28 million 5-to-11-year-old children in the U.S. and is ready to roll out the first 15 million shots on the very first week after CDC waves the flag to start.
Bottom Line: Pfizer light dose vaccine is approved by FDA and waiting for CDC’s clearance to vaccinate all the US children below 12 on the new school-attending the academic session.
