The SearchVoat Forum

The White House today unveiled plans to roll out COVID vaccines for children ages 5 to 11, even though vaccine safety experts — who advise U.S. drug regulators and review safety and efficacy data — have not met to discuss whether Pfizer’s COVID vaccine should be authorized for use in the pediatric age group.

The Biden administration said it will secure enough vaccine doses to vaccinate the 28 million children ages 5 to 11 who would become eligible if the vaccine is authorized for that age group, CNN reported.

The White House will also help equip more than 25,000 pediatric and primary care offices, hundreds of community health centers and rural health clinics as well as tens of thousands of pharmacies to administer the shot.

Jeff Zients, White House COVID-19 response director, said 15 million doses will be ready to ship within a week after the vaccine is authorized, with millions of additional shots coming each week thereafter.

“We know millions of parents have been waiting for [a] COVID-19 vaccine for kids in this age group,” Zients told reporters during a COVID briefing. “And should the FDA and (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) authorize the vaccine, we will be ready to get shots in arms.”

Zients said kids have different needs than adults and “our operational planning is geared to meet those specific needs, including by offering vaccinations in settings that parents and kids are familiar with and trust.”

The administration said it is launching a partnership with the Children’s Hospital Association “to work with over 100 children’s hospital systems across the country to set up vaccination sites in November and through the end of the calendar year.”

The administration plans to make vaccination available at school and other “community-based sites” with help from Federal Emergency Management Agency funding.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will also carry out a national public education campaign “to reach parents and guardians with accurate and culturally responsive information about the vaccine and the risks that COVID-19 poses to children.”

As has been the case for adult vaccinations, the administration believes trusted messengers — educators, doctors and community leaders — will be vital to encouraging vaccinations, according to U.S. News & World Report.

The White House began laying the groundwork with states earlier this month, asking governors to enroll pediatricians and other providers in vaccination programs so they could start administering shots as soon as they were ready.

“In the era of Delta, children get infected as readily as adults do, and they transmit the infection as readily as the adults do,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House chief medical advisor, told reporters Wednesday. “We may not appreciate that, because about 50% of the infections in children are asymptomatic.”

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, less than 2% of children known to be infected by the coronavirus are hospitalized, and less than 0.03% of those infected die.

As The Defender reported in June, experts testifying before the FDA, when it was considering authorizing Pfizer’s vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds, argued the risks did not outweigh the benefits, even for that older age group.

Vaccinating children for the benefit of adults is an “unproven hypothetical benefit,” Peter Doshi, Ph.D., associate professor University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and senior editor of The BMJ, told the FDA.

Doshi reminded FDA officials they cannot authorize or approve a medical product in a population unless the benefits outweigh the risks in that same population.

“If the FDA does not have a high bar for EUAs [Emergency Use Authorization] and licensing, the point of regulation is lost,” Doshi said.

Vaccine advisers to the FDA aren’t scheduled to meet until Oct. 26 to consider Pfizer’s request to authorize its vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. In the meeting, the advisers will review the companies’ data and FDA’s own assessment, then vote on whether the FDA should grant EUA.

The CDC will convene its committee of independent vaccine experts on Nov. 2 and 3 to set official recommendations for the vaccine’s use.

If authorized, this would be the first COVID vaccine for younger children. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is currently approved for people age 16 and older and has emergency authorization for children ages 12 to 15.

justALover wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 3:33 pm Is this all 5-11 year olds or just White kids?

CognitiveDissident5 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 4:08 pmIt's not like they're going to go into the townships and pin down feral kaffers to stick needles in them.

justALover wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 4:13 pm

CognitiveDissident5 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 4:08 pmIt's not like they're going to go into the townships and pin down feral kaffers to stick needles in them.

Of course not. Why would they do a thing like that? The poor kaffers, having been oppressed for millions of years, don't deserve to be hunted down by the government, again, and being exposed to stupid colonial ideas such as medicine, agriculture or infrastructure.

The Free, Democratic kaffer, now that he is free of Apartheid, should be left to his own devices to figure out his own future. This is what he deserves for having being sjambokked thrice daily for his whole life by the racist police, for no good reason.

The kaffer's time is now, and his place is the Rainbow Nation South Africa! Viva and god bless the non-violent non-terrorist Nelson Mandela and his not-at-all violent and corrupt wife, the Pooh.