Dr. Anthony Fauci recently expressed hope officials will be able to vaccinate children for the Chinese coronavirus this year — a move Yahoo! News identified as necessary to reach herd immunity. Such will require 70-85 percent of the population to be vaccinated, according to the infectious disease experts.
“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 guidance,” Fauci said at a White House briefing last week.
Fauci has explained the vast majority of the population, anywhere from 70 to 85 percent, will need to be vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity.
“Given that almost a quarter of the U.S. population is under the age of 18, achieving herd immunity will require that at least some children be vaccinated,” Yahoo! News observed. The outlet noted neither the Pfizer vaccine nor Moderna vaccine is FDA approved for children.
“Pfizer’s vaccine has been cleared for people 16 years and older, while Moderna’s is approved for those 18 years or older,” the outlet reported:
Both companies have started trials for children as young as 12, but Moderna has struggled to find enough young participants. Yahoo News Medical Contributor Dr. Kavita Patel explains the need for trials in children younger than 18 and 16. “Many of the doses of vaccines that we use in a childhood age population are not as strong or are at a different dosage than what we might use in adults and especially the elderly,” Patel said. “Plus, we do need to make sure that the two-dose approach is still necessary.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 55,943,800 doses of the coronavirus vaccines have been distributed in the U.S. and 33,878,254 doses administered as of February 3. Over 6 million of those doses have been administered in Florida, Texas, and New York alone.
Fauci has come under fire for seemingly flip-flopping on not only universal masking but double-masking in recent days. While he initially said it “just makes common sense” that wearing two masks at once would be more effective, he later said there is “no data that indicates that that is going to make a difference.” However, he said on Wednesday that there is “nothing wrong” with wearing two masks simultaneously and admitted he often does so often himself.
“I say there’s no recommendation. However, there are many people who take the common-sense approach,” he said, clarifying his opinion.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.