Vaccines for children: Biden says he believes children under 12 will be able to receive Covid-19 vaccines “soon”



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“Soon, I believe,” Biden said when CNN’s Don Lemon asked him when most children under 12 could get the Covid-19 vaccine.

“Soon, in the sense that I am not telling any scientist what to do. I am not intervening. So they are doing the exams now, the tests now and making the decision now,” he said. , adding that scientists will make a decision “when they’re ready” and have “done all the science that needs to be done” to determine the appropriate vaccination for different age groups.

Dr Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday it was “very likely” that data on Covid-19 vaccines in children under 12 would be available by the start of winter.

“Most likely when you do the age de-escalation study – so we’ve gone from 12 to nine, nine to six, six to two, then six months to two years – probably in late fall, at early in the winter, we’ll ‘I’ll have enough data,’ said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during a Senate hearing. will all of a sudden be cleared. This will be a regulatory decision that the FDA will have to make, ”he said.

Biden also said he expects the Covid-19 vaccines, which are currently approved under emergency use authorization, to gain full approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. United “quickly”.

“The expectation – they don’t promise me a specific date – but my expectation in speaking to the group of scientists that we have assembled … is that at some point, maybe at the start of the school year, at the end of August, beginning of September, October, they’ll get final approval saying the (US Food and Drug Administration) said, “No, that’s it. It’s good.”

Emphasizing that he doesn’t “tell any scientist what to do,” Biden also said the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will likely issue guidelines saying that “everyone under the age of 12 should probably wear a mask at school “.

Currently, none of the three Covid-19 vaccines used in the United States are available for children under the age of 12. With many schools across the United States now within weeks of reopening for the fall semester, Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson are still conducting clinical trials to assess the safety and effectiveness of vaccines in children under 12 years old.

Data for children ages 5 to 11 could arrive sometime in September, and depending on the results, the company told CNN it could ask the FDA to clear emergency use of the vaccine in the same month. .

Data for 2 to 5 year olds could arrive soon after. For younger children, Pfizer said it could potentially obtain data in October or November and, shortly thereafter, ask the FDA to clear emergency use.

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify that Biden expects full FDA approval for Covid-19 vaccines to arrive at the start of the school year, not just children under 12 years can receive the vaccine by then.

CNN’s Betsy Klein and John Bonifield contributed to this report.

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