Here are answers to five common questions.
Millions of U.S. parents — including many of my friends with children under 5 — are crossing their fingers again this week that Covid-19 vaccines will soon be available for younger age groups. An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously on Wednesday to recommend that the agency authorize the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for use in very young children. On Friday and Saturday, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee will meet to finalize their recommendations. After multiple delays in the review process of Pfizer’s vaccine, pediatricians are hopeful that both vaccines will become available early next week. The Pfizer vaccine would cover children aged 6 months through 4 years old, and the Moderna vaccine would cover children aged 6 months through 5 years old. Five million doses of each vaccine were made available for pharmacies and other medical establishments to order starting two weeks ago, so if the vaccines are authorized, they will be ready to go into arms immediately. Understandably, many parents of young children have questions about the vaccines and the expected rollout. I talked with three infectious disease pediatricians to get answers. The Moderna vaccine is likely to be authorized as two doses spaced four weeks apart, said Dr. Debbie-Ann Shirley, a pediatric infectious disease physician at the University of Virginia. Pfizer will most likely be authorized as a three-dose series, with the first two shots spaced three weeks apart, and the third shot given at least eight weeks later. (Pfizer’s third shot is not considered a booster. It’s likely that Moderna and Pfizer will eventually authorize an additional booster dose for young children.) Both vaccines are at lower doses than the vaccines given to older kids and adults, and for young children, the Pfizer vaccine provides a lower dose than the Moderna vaccine. The C.D.C. is still deciding on when kids will be considered fully vaccinated, but it’s likely to be two weeks after their final dose, Dr. Shirley said. Preliminary data released by Moderna in April suggested that two shots were 51 percent effective at preventing Covid-19 infection among kids aged 6 months through 1 year, and that two shots were 37 percent effective at preventing infection among kids aged 2 through 5 years. Pfizer’s three-dose series was found to be 80 percent effective at preventing Covid-19 infection among kids aged 6 months through 4 years old, although that estimate is based on a small number of children who received the third dose.
