The government’s top infectious disease expert said Friday he hopes to see children being vaccinated starting in the next few months. It’s a needed step to securing widespread immunity to the coronavirus.
“Hopefully by the time we get to the late spring and early summer we will have children being able to be vaccinated,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said during the White House coronavirus briefing.
Vaccines are not yet approved for children, and Fauci was looking ahead to a time they will be plentiful. Even older adults are having difficulty getting shots at the moment. As of Thursday, only about 1.3% of Americans had been fully vaccinated with the required two doses of the currently available vaccines.
Children represent about one-fourth of the population, and for the U.S. to reach “herd immunity,” or widespread resistance, about 70% to 85% of the population must be vaccinated.
For example, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine received emergency approval for use in people 16 and older. The next step, said Fauci, involves testing in children down to 12 years old, and if that’s successful it’s followed by another round of testing down to those 9 years old.
“You don’t want to have to … go through an efficacy trial, where you’re involving tens of thousands of children,” said Fauci. “What you can do, is in a much smaller trial, measured in hundreds to a couple of thousands … what we call safety and … immunogenicity.” That’s a term for whether the vaccine successfully triggers an immune system response.
After a frustratingly slow start, the U.S. is now administering about 1 million shots a day to adults, although that pace is still seen as insufficient. President Joe Biden has talked about 1.5 million shots a day, if it can be done. His administration has set a goal of 100 million shots in its first 100 days.
Two more vaccines from American companies are nearing the stage where the FDA can evaluate them for approval. One from Johnson & Johnson requires only a single shot.
His American Rescue Plan legislation in Congress calls for $50 billion to finance a major expansion of testing, which is seen as necessary for the safe reopening of schools and businesses. That’s because robust testing can detect early outbreaks before they spread through a community and trigger shutdowns. Testing in the U.S. had a chaotic start, and experts say in many parts of the country it’s still subpar.
