Pfizer Plans To Ask The FDA To Approve A 3rd Dose Of The Covid Vaccine For Children As Young As 5 Years Old
We're more than two years into the coronavirus pandemic, and many people are still getting a second or third dose of the vaccine, even kids as young as 5 years old.
Pfizer and BioNTech have been conducting trials on a third dose of the coronavirus vaccine for children, and they're bringing the results to the Food and Drug Administration to request an approval for kids as young as 5 years old to take yet another shot.
Pfizer Is Requesting Approval To Administer a Third Dose of the Covid Vaccine to Kids as Young as 5
In the trial Pfizer conducted, 140 children were given a third dose of the coronavirus vaccine just six months after receiving their second shot. These kids were between 5-11 years old. They drew blood from the children and found a six-fold increase in antibodies compared to what they found one month after the second dose. Pfizer considered this "a strong immune response in this age group." They also found that the antibodies were strong enough to neutralize the Omicron variant "with a robust response."
Pfizer announced on Wednesday that it's taking this data to the FDA and requesting approval so the third dose can be administered to children as young as 5. If it's approved, only a small demographic of children will be eligible for this booster. The CDC says only 28% of children aged 5 to 11 have been fully vaccinated since the recommendations were set for this age group.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has been pushing for kids to be vaccinated recently, insisting that it's "a bunch of nonsense" to say that we don't need to worry about administering the jab to kids. Considering that children have a 99.99% survival rate from coronavirus, it doesn't really seem like nonsense to be skeptical of a vaccine for a virus that poses little to no risk to kids.
The most nonsensical part of this whole endeavor is that Pfizer is already gathering data on administering the vaccine to kids under 5 years old. Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who sits on Pfizer's board of directors, said that the FDA will likely decide in May whether it will recommend for toddlers to receive the vaccine.
In March, the FDA found that four out of every 10 parents of kids aged 5-11 would choose not to have them vaccinated, but this data didn't explicitly say that that the other six out of the 10 parents would choose to give them the jab. It doesn't seem like the decision to vaccinate your 5 year old is a particularly popular one, but Pfizer and the FDA will probably continue to push it on children anyway.