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Dr Hotez urged parents to avoid misinformation and get their young children vaccinated after Pfizer formally asked the Food and Drug Administration to clear its Covid-19 vaccine with BioNTech for children aged 5 to 11.
“There is a false account … that this is a disease that affects only older Americans, those over 70 or 80 years old, and we have learned with this delta variant over the course of summer … it was never true, ”said Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital. “The kids need to be vaccinated so this is great news and hopefully soon after Halloween it will be released to the public.”
If the FDA approves the vaccine, 28 million more children would be eligible for it. Currently, the Pfizer vaccine is only approved for children 12 years of age and older. A key FDA vaccine advisory group is scheduled to meet on October 26 to discuss Pfizer’s data.
More than 22,000 children have been hospitalized due to Covid-19 and 520 have died, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Hotez told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” that given these high numbers, the “need is obvious” to immunize children between the ages of 5 and 11.
Hotez called another false story regarding Covid-19 vaccines for children.
“The other piece of misinformation you hear is that we only vaccinate children to protect adults and the children are fine, and we only use them as, in a way, cannon fodder to protect adults. , and that’s absurd, ”Hotez said.
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