White House Predicts Children Younger Than 5 Could Get Their COVID-19 Vaccines by Late June
The vaccines for children over 6 months old will have to be approved by the F.D.A. and the C.D.C. before being shipped around the country
The COVID-19 vaccine for children under 5 is expected to become available in the next few weeks, the White House said on Thursday.
President Biden's coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha, shared in a briefing an estimated timeline for when younger kids around the country could be granted access to their first COVID-19 shot.
In Jha's predictions, according to The New York Times, he said vaccines could be administered as early as June 21,. Pharmacies and community health centers can begin ordering them from the Biden administration on Friday.
"We expect that vaccination will begin in earnest as early as June 21 and really roll on throughout that week," Jha said, NPR reported.
Jha also warned that this timeline is based on approval from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers of Disease Control, CNBC reported. No doses will be sent off until the F.D.A. and the C.D.C. approve.
"I want to be very clear that I am not here to prejudge the outcome of the process," Dr. Jha said, the Times reported. "But the administration is hard at work planning all sorts of scenarios based on whatever the outcome is."
The administration is set to meet the F.D.A at a June 15 advisory meeting, NPR reported. If all goes well, shipments of the first 10 million doses could start arriving at doctors' offices as soon as the following weekend.
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Local health departments, pediatricians and family doctors have been working closely with the administration, Jha said according to the Times, and has asked states to distribute an initial batch of doses to the most vulnerable young patients such as children's hospitals and sites in neighborhoods hit the hardest by the pandemic.
Jha said that every parent who wants to vaccinate their baby (6 months and older), toddler or other child younger than 5 could likely do so within weeks after the shots become available, NPR reported
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Last month, the third dose of the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was found to "elicit a strong immune response" for children under 5 years old.
A preliminary analysis from Pfizer revealed that the COVID vaccine for children 6 months to under 5 years old has an efficacy of 80.3%, which meets "all immunobridging criteria for emergency use authorization." Children under 5 are the only group in the U.S. that have not yet received COVID-19 vaccination.
The company noted that out of 1,678 children who were given three doses, just 10 COVID-19 cases were diagnosed as of April 29.