US coronavirus: In a matter of days, Pfizer CEO says they’ll be ready
“It is a question of days, not weeks,” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla told ABC News Sunday about when the company will submit data on children ages 5 to 11 to the FDA for consideration.
Currently, Covid-19 vaccines are only approved for children 12 and older, which has stirred concern among health experts as cases in children increase, school years begin and the more transmissible Delta variant spreads.
Once the data from Pfizer/BioNTech is in, it will have to go through two committees, one for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and one for the CDC, CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Johnathan Reiner said Sunday. If the data comes in this week, it would likely be in committee by the end of October, he added.
And there is a lot of data for them to look at, he said.
“This is a vaccine for children, so getting the dose right — in terms of efficacy and side effects — is crucial,” Reiner said.
But even when a vaccine becomes available, a difficult task lies ahead in getting children vaccinated. Less than half of US adolescents are fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to a CNN analysis of CDC data.
In response, officials need to do a better job educating the public about the importance of vaccination for the health of their children and their families as a whole, Reiner said.
“If you want kids in school, the best way to keep them in school is to keep them from getting Covid,” he said.
“We know how to keep them safe,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told CBS Sunday. “When we don’t use the proper mitigation, they’re more likely to have outbreaks.”
Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said he encourages parents to vaccinate their children when they can.
“This is a dangerous pathogen,” Gottlieb told CNN. “I wouldn’t be so cavalier about this virus, we know that this virus has long-term consequences in a lot of people who contract it, including children.”
Current surge likely to die down by Thanksgiving, Gottlieb says
Gottlieb predicted Sunday the current surge of coronavirus spread is likely to worsen across parts of the country and then die down by Thanksgiving.
“I think you’ll see a wave of infection sweep across the Northeast as kids go back to school, the weather turns cold and people move indoors,” Gottlieb told CNN’s Pamela Brown.
The virus won’t be gone, Gottlieb said, but hopefully it will reach more manageable levels — which he estimates to be about 20,000 cases per day.
According to the CDC, the current seven-day average for new cases in the US is more than 114,000 new cases a day.
The decline in cases will likely come from most people attaining immunity to the virus, Gottlieb said.
“Some people will get a vaccination; some will challenge their immunity by no choice but getting…
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