Dr. Anthony Fauci believes both babies and toddlers could be eligible to receive vaccines for the Chinese coronavirus as early as next year, making the prediction to Insider this week.
“Hopefully within a reasonably short period of time, likely the beginning of next year in 2022, in the first quarter of 2022, it will be available to them,” the White House coronavirus adviser told Insider.
“Can’t guarantee it, you’ve got to do the clinical trial,” he added, couching his statement.
Insider identified Pfizer as the “likely frontrunner in the race to vaccinate babies and toddlers, because its pediatric vaccine trials are already underway”:
But Pfizer hasn’t submitted any clinical trial data to the FDA for kids under 5 yet. It can be tough for vaccine makers to predict exactly when clinical trials will be completed, because the timing hinges in part on how many trial participants get sick during a study period (as we know, COVID-19 illnesses don’t like to run on a set schedule).
According to an October report from ABC Action News, “Pfizer expects to apply for approval from the FDA for their COVID-19 vaccine for children 6 months to 5 years old in November.”
Fauci’s remarks follow the Biden White House’s campaign to vaccinate children ages 5 through 11, even recruiting famed children’s characters, such as Big Bird and Elmo, to convince parents to make it happen.
“Parents of children ages 5 and over: Please get them vaccinated,” Biden pled following the approval of Pfizer’s jab for that age group.
The push from Biden and other blue state officials, including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has bragged about thousands of NYC children getting the shot, comes despite the fact that coronavirus hospitalization rates and mortality rates among children remain extremely low, as data from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) show.
In states reporting — 45 states, as well as New York City, Guam, and Puerto Rico — 0.00 percent to 0.03 percent of all child cases proved to be fatal.
Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants to wait until 2076 to share the data of its approval for Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine.