Vaccines have played a crucial role in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. These vaccines have proven overwhelmingly effective in preventing disease and keeping people who do get COVID out of the hospital have helped keep our most vulnerable safe, and allowed us to regain some normalcy. Although vaccines have been approved for children 5 years and older in the United States for several months, parents of younger children are still awaiting COVID vaccine approval to protect their children 4 years of age and younger. It sounds like the protection is not too far away, and it will come at the perfect time when parents can really use a sigh of relief.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the White House’s top medical adviser, said on January 19, 2022, that the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID vaccines for children 4 years of age and younger can be approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by the end of next month, according to Fortune.
“My hope is that it will be within the next month or so and not much later than that,” Fauci said during a town hall event with Blue Star Families, a nonprofit group that supports military families. He added, “but I can not guarantee it.”
The COVID vaccine approval timeline for the only age group that does not have an authorized vaccine against COVID in the US is not set in stone. Yet it is in line with the time frame we heard in December.
At the end of 2021, Pfizer and BioNTech said they would likely submit data on vaccine trials for children under five by the first half of 2022. The vaccine manufacturer originally planned to offer these children a two-shot schedule, but extended the trial to examine a three-shot schedule after the two doses did not produce a strong enough immune response at two-to-four. yearlings have not shown.
Approving a vaccine for the younger age group coming at the end of next month will be fantastic timing – and likely a lifesaver for some children who still do not qualify for a COVID vaccine. More children get sick with COVID than ever – in the week ending January 13, over 981,000 children COVID-19 cases was reported in the US This is almost a 70 percent increase from the previous week. It is also, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, four times higher than last winter’s high, which was also no joke.
And it’s not just children who test positive for COVID: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that hospitalization rates for children under five after the Omicron variant became the most dominant variant in the US If the timeline works out and the vaccine gets authorization at the end of next month, parents will no doubt breathe a little easier. And we can all use it now.
