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THE US HAS moved a step closer to expanding Covid-19 vaccinations for millions more children as government advisers endorsed the Pfizer vaccine for kids aged between five and 11.
A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel voted unanimously, with one abstention, that the vaccine’s benefits in preventing Covid-19 in that age group outweigh any potential risks.
That includes questions about a heart-related side effect that has been very rare in teens and young adults despite their use of a much higher vaccine dose.
While children are far less likely than older people to get severe Covid-19, ultimately many panellists decided it is important to give parents the choice to protect their youngsters — especially those at high risk of illness or who live in places where other precautions, like masks in schools, are not being used.
“This is an age group that deserves and should have the same opportunity to be vaccinated as every other age,” said panel member Dr Amanda Cohn of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The FDA is not bound by the panel’s recommendation and is expected to make its own decision within days.
If the FDA concurs, there is still another step: Next week, the CDC will have to decide whether to recommend the jabs and which youngsters should get them.
Full-strength vaccines made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech already are recommended for everyone 12 and older but paediatricians and many parents are clamouring for protection for younger children.
The extra-contagious delta variant has caused an alarming rise in paediatric infections, and families are frustrated with school quarantines and having to say no to sleepovers and other rites of childhood to keep the virus at bay.
In the five-to-11 age group, there have been over 8,300 hospitalisations reported, about a third requiring intensive care, and nearly 100 deaths.
States are getting ready to roll out the jabs — just a third of the amount given to teens and adults — that will come in special orange-capped vials to avoid dosage mix-ups.
Great news for the children of the world. Get this miracle vaccine and help stop the spread of covid.
@Paul Whitehead: miracle vaccine??. Rushed vaccine that my kid won’t be getting. Not enough is known about long term effects 10 year so down the line.
@Paul Whitehead: It took Covid two years in the US to kill as many children as the flu did there in 2018 alone (references available on request). Covid killed 26 kids in the Uk in 2020. 19 of those kids were desperately ill beforehand. 7 were healthy. In a nation of 14mil kids, that is not a risk to base any sort of policy on. To suggest children are at risk any more than normal is completely misleading, fear-inducing nonsense. With zero long term safety data to go by, can we not just leave the vaccines for the at-risk??? Or, dare to dream, the at-risk who are yet to be vaccinated in poor countries who we know are dying for want of them?
@Conor Brady: you can if you want.
@Conor Brady: how many kids were in hospital from Covid?
@Roy Dowling: if nobody took a vaccine that didn’t have a 10 year track record then we would still be dying of whooping cough, polio and a host of other things.
There come times in our history where something occurs which is sufficiently serious to warrant a trust in scientific and medical progress for the good of humanity as a whole.
Large corporations and governments don’t have anything to gain from killing off our kiddies – they kind of need them if they are to continue to stay in business.
@Roy Dowling: They say that the worst side effects will happen 70yrs or so down the line. Yikes!
@Conor Brady: one of the reasons that they will be vaccinating young children will be because of anti-vaxxers like you @@ But of course, you are too blind to see that.
@Francis Mc Carthy: who is they the anti vaxers with no training other than how to YouTube
@Francis Mc Carthy: I am annoyed at engaging but what about his post says he is antivax. I am fully vaccinated, even had the flu vaccine myself after the covid vaccine and have literally had all vaccines available to me in my lifetime…. As have my children. But I agree with Conor here. One of those studies was 2 months the other was 2.5 WEEKS for the 5-11 year group. The documented death rate in the age group is something like 0.0005% and that is assuming every case of covid in that age group is documented. Presently for adults the research is showing a 4.5 month life span of efficicenty for the adult vaccine (again absolutely i will get the booster) but are we doing to repeatedly vaccinate 5 to 11 year olds for an illness that is currently not high risk to them? Would vaccinating countries with less than 10% of their adult population vaccinated who are literally dying waiting for it not be the best thing for the world?? I mean I just don’t understand this oh anti vax anti vax mantra. I personally would call conors post the most educated one here.
@Roy Dowling: That makes 2 of us, my daughter won’t be getting it.
@Sarah Lou: hmmm, first of all, Conor is anti-vax. Also, just because you don’t see the virus as a danger to children, they are transmitting it back into their and other people households. Hope that helps.
@Francis Mc Carthy: compelling and all as the argument was…. No it doesn’t help at all. They are bringing home to their vaccinated households. There are of course kids in every avenue that will be more vulnerable and should consider vaccination but your argument that kids should be mass vaccinated to protect already vaccinated adults does not stack up. Equally…. I hope that helps.
@Sarah Lou: I will take it that you agree that the data has proven that it is the over 60′s & the immunocompromised that are at most risk from covid-19 and that the vaccines went and gave them protection from the covid-19 and from the Alpha variant yes? Has those odds risen since highly contagious Delta variant came to our shores ? The fact of the matter is that the less chance of the delta variant mutating among the non vaccinated ( children included) then the less chance of vaccine evading variants. Hope that helps you even more.
@Paul Whitehead: This “miracle vaccine” was originally created in 2018 by the Pfizer BioNtech collaboration as flu vaccine, the reason was to produce a cheaper, more profitable alternative.
“Innovative vaccine approaches are urgently needed to provide improved protection against seasonal flu, and to respond rapidly and in quantity to pandemic influenza threats. mRNA vaccines offer a novel approach to code for any protein or multiple proteins, and the potential to manufacture higher potency flu vaccines more rapidly and at a lower cost than contemporary flu vaccines.”
Does that “miracle” from 2018 sound familiar?
@Tom Doyle: Tom do you think we live in a vacuum or a bubble?? some continents are at 10% vaccination TEN percent that is 90% unvaccinated in their adult population and you are concerned that the children, many of whom have a level of naturally acquired immunity already, are going to cause the new variant and not the largely unvaccinated continent?! where are the humans all gone. people are literally dying because they have no access to this vaccine and people on here calling out for kids to be mass vaccinated to protect adults who are vaccinated or using tenuous examples of potential situations. The facts are we have one of the most vaccinated adult population in the world, noone is appreciating how privileged we are and want to grab grab grab taking away from those who need it most. Stop seeing Ireland as the only place in the world and start thinking about the human race in general.
@Sarah Lou: Agree with you that it’ll be a lot better when everyone has an equal chance to be vaccinated. I’m glad to see the USA is back in COVAX for that. The world’s at 37% fully jabbed and 49% partly; which is great. I feel it’s a case of masking up before handing out PPE to others – or it defeats the purpose – and we do actively support COVAX.
But all infectious outbreaks turn into a mostly childhood illness after several years.
It’s always the unprotected youngest generation who catch it in the next wave.
Delta’s contagious enough for now. Is it not best to keep on top of the spread as it mutates, not export it? Ireland really doesn’t have a great healthcare system.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: Ideally we would do something to fix the healthcare system which would prevent the deaths of many people, allowing us to export the vaccine to those who need it saving even more lives. I cant believe people now want to mass vaccinate the kids to protect the health system.
@Conor Brady: The vaccine is safe. Close on 7 billion doses administered.. The 4.5M deaths we have seen worldwide are from covid and not vaccines.
@David Van-Standen: It has saved millions of lives – therefore it is a miracle vaccine.
@Sarah Lou: nice try, but no puff of the cigar for you. We’re talking about vaccinating a small % of the Irish population to help get the Delta variant under control in our own country.
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