NATIONWIDE — Vaccination sites across Central Florida are working to give out second doses now as well as first doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. But it is the coming months that will be important as Dr. Anthony Fauci says children may get the vaccine by either late spring or early summer.
What You Need To Know
- Dr. Anthony Fauci hopes children will be vaccinated in the coming months
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Thousands of shots are now going out daily around the Sunshine State in the fight against COVID-19, the vast majority of the supply going to those over the age of 65 years old.
Until recently, one big group of the population has been left out of vaccination plans but that is expected to change over the next few months. Currently, neither Pfizer’s or Moderna's vaccine is approved for children.
On Friday, Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he hopes to see children being vaccinated in the next few months. But, before any COVID-19 vaccine could be administered to children, testing must be completed that shows they are safe for kids.
Right now, Pfizer’s vaccine is approved for those over 16 years old; Moderna’s for people over 18.
Testing is already underway right now to determine if those age limits can come down, Fauci said.
“Over the next couple of months, we will be doing trials in an age de-escalation manner so that hopefully by the time we get to the late spring and early summer, we will have children being able to be vaccinated according to the FDA’s guidance,” Fauci said.
Instead of large-scale trials that would involve thousands of children, Fauci said they will use smaller trials with hundreds to a few thousand kids to ensure that these vaccines are both safe and effective.
“We’ve already started on what’s called an ‘age de-escalation’ testing. What that means is you start off, for example we know one of the vaccines is 16 and one is 18-years-old. So we’ve got to go down from 16 to 12 and from 12 to 9,” Fauci said.
Vaccinating kids is key to achieving herd immunity against COVID-19 but any plans to begin inoculating children rely on supply being more readily available across the US.
Recent data from the CDC shows a little more than 1 percent of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated with thousands of shots going out daily. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations
President Joe Biden has set the goal of 100 million shots of vaccine in his first 100 days in office. Over the next three weeks, the Biden administration said it will boost supply to states, tribes and territories up to 10 million doses per week.