Last Thursday, the White House announced that the COVID-19 vaccine for children under 5 is expected to become available in the next few weeks. The Biden Administration’s coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha, shared in a briefing an estimated timeline for when kids ages 6 months to 4 years old around the country could be granted access to their first COVID-19 shot.
According to The New York Times, Dr. Jha said that vaccines could be administered as early as June 21,. Pharmacies and community health centers can begin ordering them from the Biden Administration on Friday. “We expect that vaccination will begin in earnest as early as June 21 and really roll on throughout that week,” said Dr. Jha, in an interview with NPR. He also stated that any parent who wants to vaccinate babies 6 months and older, toddler or child younger than 5 could likely do so within weeks after the shots become available.
However, Jha has also cautioned that the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers of Disease Control will first need to approve the vaccine for use. No doses will be sent off until the F.D.A. and the C.D.C. sign off. “I want to be very clear that I am not here to prejudge the outcome of the process,” Dr. Jha stated, adding, “But the administration is hard at work planning all sorts of scenarios based on whatever the outcome is.” The administration is set to meet the F.D.A at a June 15 advisory meeting, NPR reported. If all goes well, shipments of the first 10 million doses could start arriving at doctors’ offices as soon as the following weekend.
Last month, the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was found to “elicit a strong immune response” for children under 5 years old.A preliminary analysis from Pfizer revealed that the COVID vaccine for children 6 months to under 5 years old has an efficacy of 80.3%, which meets “all immunobridging criteria for emergency use authorization.” Children under 5 are the only group in the U.S. that have not yet been approved for COVID-19 vaccination.
The company noted that out of 1,678 children who were given three doses, just 10 COVID-19 cases were diagnosed as of April 29. “The study suggests that a low 3-microgram dose of our vaccine, carefully selected based on tolerability data, provides young children with a high level of protection against the recent COVID-19 strains,” Dr. Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, said in a statement. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use in children ages 12 to 15 back in May 2021. The vaccine received the same approval for children ages 5 to 11 six months later in November.
According to the Times, Dr. Jha says that local health departments, pediatricians and family doctors have been working closely with the administration, and has asked states to distribute an initial batch of doses to the most vulnerable young patients at children’s hospitals and sites in neighborhoods hit the hardest by the pandemic. Because Covid-19 rates are once again on the rise, aadvocates are encouraging the administration to act sooner rather than later.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis wrote a letter calling on the Biden administration to step up efforts to get authorization for vaccines for the country’s youngest population. “Hospitalization rates for children under 5 were the highest ever during the omicron surge. While children younger than 5 are less vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 than adults, they can still experience severe and lasting outcomes,” Polis said in the letter. “Delays and lack of urgency from the FDA and vaccine developers in authorizing a vaccine for children under 5 are concerning.”
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