The Food and Drug Administration approved Pfizer-coronavirus BioNTech’s vaccine for emergency use in children ages 5 to 11, a decision that was eagerly anticipated by millions of families seeking to protect some of the last remaining Americans who had not been vaccinated as part of the national vaccination campaign.
Approximately 28 million youngsters will be eligible to receive one-third of the adult dosage, given in two injections three weeks apart, as part of the study. According to expectations, they might begin receiving vaccinations as early as Wednesday if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gives the go light.
The Biden administration has pledged that children’s vaccinations would be freely available at physician offices, community health centres, children’s hospitals, and pharmacies, with 15 million doses of vaccine ready to ship immediately from the Biden administration’s warehouse. States began ordering dosages last week, according to a formula based on the number of children in each state who fall into the targeted age category. Despite the fact that the school year has already begun, the paediatric dosage will arrive in time for the holidays, providing more comfort to families who will be gathering older and younger people together for the first time since the early months of the 2020 academic year.
Doctor Larry Corey of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, who is also the director of the Covid-19 Prevention Network, stated, “It is a really significant tool in the return to normality.” “Knowing that your kid is safe and will not get seriously sick as a result of attending school is a tremendous psychological comfort.”
During a clinical experiment, it was discovered that the vaccination provided considerable protection against the virus in young infants. However, it is unknown whether or not it will have a significant impact on containing the epidemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of this week, 8,300 children aged 5 to 11 had been hospitalised with Covid-19, and at least 170 had died, out of a total of more than 3.2 million hospitalizations and 740,000 fatalities nationwide.
Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, says that the vaccination of the more than 60 million adolescents and adults who are already eligible for shots will be the most important factor in determining how much more sickness and death will occur in the future.
Despite the fact that children have a much lower risk of severe outcomes from Covid, Dr. Janet Woodcock, the Food and Drug Administration’s acting commissioner, said at a news conference on Friday that they should be vaccinated to protect against long-lasting Covid symptoms, Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, and hospitalisation if they are exposed to the vaccine. Hospitalization and mortality rates among children aged 5 to 11 were described as “very alarming” by the researcher.
Some vaccination specialists are concerned that the same disparities that marred the vaccine launch for adults this year will continue to impede the vaccine rollout for children in the future.
According to Dr. James E.K. Hildreth, president of Meharry Medical College (a historically Black college), “we cannot see what we saw in the first phases of rolling out the immunizations for adults, in which privileged individuals and people with money figure out a way to be first in line.”
It is important, he said that school nurses, congregations, and local health authorities work together to reach children and families who may not have health insurance or access to physician care. Everyone is eligible for the immunizations, which are provided at no cost.
However, although the epidemic has disproportionately affected people of colour, the racial differences are most pronounced among youngsters.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, black and Hispanic children are less likely than white children to be tested for Covid-19, but they are more likely than white children to be infected with the virus, to be hospitalised with it, and to die from it. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hospitalisation rates among children aged 5 to 11 are three times higher for Black, Hispanic, and Native American children than for white children.
According to Kaiser Family Foundation, more than half of children in the 5-11 age range are children of colour, and almost four out of ten originate from families with earnings below 200 percent of the federal poverty threshold.
