Even with all the shocking statistics about the rise in Covid cases over the Christmas holiday, there is some good news. The FDA just approved a vaccine booster for children aged 12-15. Now it’s sitting on the CDC’s desk and could get sign off as soon as today. In addition, they decreased the time between the second dose and the booster from six months to five. So as students return to packed classrooms across the US, at least more of them will have access to the booster to keep themselves and staff safe.
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday authorized booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for 12-to-15-year-olds, part of a broader effort to expand protection as schools, airlines and businesses struggle with massive disruptions caused by a surging omicron variant.
The FDA also shortened to five months the time required between the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and a booster shot. Previously, the interval was six months. In addition, it cleared third vaccine doses for some younger children with impaired immune systems. The moves are scheduled to be reviewed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its advisers this week, with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky expected to sign off as soon as Wednesday.
The shortened period between second dose and booster applies to both adults and kids. I’d love to just end with a ‘yay!’ and sign off to keep this a feel-good post. But obviously there’s cause for the booster and shortened wait time between shots. We’d heard that cases spiked to 47% after the Thanksgiving holiday. They rose by 51% over Christmas. Flights are being cancelled in the thousands due to the virus and many universities have gone virtual for the first few weeks of the year to stem the spread. However, most public K-12 schools remain open. Each has adopted varying policies to protect their students. Some require a negative test to get back on campus. Others, such as the Los Angeles School District (and ours), have emphasized the mask policy. They aren’t requiring a negative test for everyone, just anyone who shows any symptoms. Our district has on-site testing so at least that’s accessible for the students. But with the Omicron numbers rising the way they are, the boosters are another level of defense. Elementary students (5 to 11-year-olds) don’t have to worry about boosters just yet because they were only authorized for vaccines in October.
Of course, someone has to complain, and so they are. Good ol’ Rick DeSantis in Florida is accusing those states issuing mask and vaccine mandates as being hysteria driven. Florida’s cases were up 326% after Christmas, by the way. Some people have expressed concern over giving boosters to kids given the rare instances of myocarditis that occurred in a small number of cases after they received the second vaccine dose. However, not only did the young people recover quickly, but the testing has not shown any instances of myocarditis occurring from the booster shot. Until we can start talking about Covid in the past tense, all these vaccine updates are good news.
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