Embedded Files
By Christine Li
May 9th 2021
Many perks have been conducted to get people out to get vaccinated by having the adolescents be automatically added to a lottery that allows them a free ride for four year to their state or CUNY college when it comes to the newer vaccines for those under 18/16.
Officials close to the Food and Drugs Administration revealed that the agency will begin to authorize the usage of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for ages twelve to fifteen next week as of writing to request for use of the Emergency Use Authorization or EUA that aids the distribution of countermeasures like a vaccine in a ubiquitous pandemic. After approval, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory will gather to review the data and make guidelines for those who will get the vaccine.
Currently, the Pfizer vaccine is only for ages sixteen and up, expanding the age range will be beneficial towards ending the pandemic, but to get to the stage, the vaccines have to go through clinical trials. The trials done in the age group involved two-thousand-two-hundred-sixty adolescents, of which displayed an outstanding one hundred percent efficacy rate with very positive antibody results. Their results were much better compared to the results of the sixteen to twenty-five age group though displaying similar side effects. On the results, the Pfizer Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Albert Bourla comments: ¨“We share the urgency to expand the authorization of our vaccine to use in younger populations and are encouraged by the clinical trial data from adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15. We plan to submit these data to FDA as a proposed amendment to our Emergency Use Authorization in the coming weeks and to other regulators around the world, with the hope of starting to vaccinate this age group before the start of the next school year,” along with their German collaborator, Ugur Sahin, CEO and Co-founder of BioNTech, stating, “Across the globe, we are longing for a normal life. This is especially true for our children. The initial results we have seen in the adolescent studies suggest that children are particularly well protected by vaccination, which is very encouraging given the trends we have seen in recent weeks regarding the spread of the B.1.1.7 UK variant. It is very important to enable them to get back to everyday school life and to meet friends and family while protecting them and their loved ones,” Both cherishing the fantastic outcomes.
Regarding the remainder of the ages who can get the vaccine, trials for children six months to eleven years old began with a study to see the reaction of the participants concerning safety, immunogenicity and tolerability from the four thousand six hundred forty four kids in the program globally that were further separated groups from individuals aged five to eleven, two to five and six months to five. They will go by groups and follow the trial process and be documented.
Moderna, another authorized vaccine, shares many similarities with the need for two doses and high efficacy rates of ninety four percent (Pfizer has a ninety five percent of efficacy towards the individual), while only being available for those eighteen and older. However, their trials for teens twelve to seventeen and kids six months to twelve will have results done later this year.
But what are the trials and how do they work? The trials work like so: the thousands of volunteers are divided into two groups. Half will get the authentic two dose vaccine and others get a placebo. Then, they will be monitored over time by scientists to see if they will get the virus or not. If nobody in the vaccinated group gets the virus but an amount from the other group contracts it, it has an 100 percent efficacy rate as in the case of the percentage of the age group with eighteen covid cases in the placebo group and none in the vaccinated section for the Pfizer vaccine. After, they will continue to be looked after for two more years after their second and last dose.
Obstacles include uncertainty to get vaccinated. Hesitancy is very common in adults and many of them would not want their kids to be vaccinated as well. This is also layered over pressure on President Biden to distribute the supply the US has for the government that has bought 700 million vaccines from the three authorized companies to be delivered before August, a lot more than needed. The White House already vowed that they will be giving 60 million AstraZeneca vaccines to other countries when it is approved. Health groups and experts still criticized this as not enough and should go to places with extreme outbreaks like India.
Yet expanding the age range of those who will be vaccinated is a major step towards the fight against the coronavirus and resuming a pre-covid life through immunity but also to get students back to school the following year when we resume to full capacity with a more normal academic year.
Sources:
https://nypost.com/2021/05/07/rutgers-to-enroll-200-kids-to-take-part-in-pfizer-vaccine-trial/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3odScka55A
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/us/politics/coronavirus-vaccine-teenagers.html
Page updated
Report abuse