Now parents listen up.
Young children are one step closer
to having a COVID-19 vaccine.
Pfizer filed for emergency use
authorization from the FDA for its low
dose COVID vaccine for kids under 5.
So what's this all going to look like?
We'll just two months ago,
Pfizer reported mixed
results when it came to the
effectiveness of this vaccine for children
between six months and five years,
children's Minnesota vaccine
specialist Joe Kerlin says it comes
down to the dosage Pfizer's vaccine
for everyone 12 and older is.
30 micrograms per shot for
kids 5 to 12. It's
just 10 micrograms. The new
vaccine that we're looking at for
kids six months to five years of age
is a 3 microgram dose. This is 110th.
The active ingredient is compared to adults,
so it's a very, very small amount,
and the safety profile looked excellent.
There were no adverse events.
There weren't any serious safety concerns,
and for kids under 2 years of age,
so six months, 24 months,
they had good efficacy.
But for whatever reason, the kids.
Two to five years of age didn't have that
robust immune response that we wanted,
and Pfizer said, OK,
we're going to pause.
We're going to re examine this,
giving them a third dose to see
if that can get us to the point
where we're getting that vaccine
efficacy we want and need to
be comparable to what anybody?
Five years of age and older actually has.
So if you're wondering, well, why bother?
Since kids seem to fare better than
adults when it comes to getting COVID,
Kerlin says that kids can still
get seriously sick and they want
to avoid that if at all possible.
Now, the FDA signs off you guys, kids,
they can start rolling up their sleeves
and getting these shots come early
March and we still don't know though,
if it's going to be a series of two
or even three shots, they're still
doing a little research on that.
Like good to have the
option though for the kids.
Thanks, Alicia.