Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky says the federal health agency is working quickly on a COVID-19 vaccine for younger children between the ages of 5 and 11.
“We’re waiting for the companies to submit the data to the FDA, we’re anticipating that will happen in the fall,” she told the “Today Show” on Sept. 13. “We will look at that data from the FDA, from the CDC, with the urgency that we all feel for getting our kids vaccinated and we’re hoping by the end of the year.”
Last week, FDA executives, including Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock and Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research chief Peter Marks, said in a statement that the agency will carefully look at data for younger children once it becomes available.
The officials said the FDA is then “prepared to complete its review as quickly as possible, likely in a matter of weeks rather than months,” adding that “the agency’s ability to review these submissions rapidly will depend in part on the quality and timeliness of the submissions by manufacturers.”
Should the CDC hand down a recommendation that younger children get vaccinated, it’s likely that some school districts will mandate them for in-person classes. Already, the Los Angeles Unified School District last week voted to mandate vaccines for children aged 12 and up in order to attend classes on campus.
“We hope this data will be reassuring for children and young people and their families,” said Dr. Elizabeth Whittaker, from the Centre for Paediatrics and Child Health and Imperial College London, reported the BBC. She said that even after the emergence of the Delta variant, it hasn’t affected the child mortality rate.
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