Finally, vaccines for young kids
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 June 2022
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
On Wednesday, independent advisers to the Food and Drug Administration recommended the agency authorize coronavirus vaccines for children under 5. What this move means for families and how it will affect where we are in the pandemic.
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It’s finally happening: The Food and Drug Administration seems poised to sign off on coronavirus vaccines for children younger than 5 years old. Parents are celebrating the news after waiting for approval for almost a year and a half. But why did it take so much longer for this, while adults have already had vaccines for over a year? And what does this development mean for our fight against the pandemic?
Anita Patel, a critical care pediatrician at Children’s National Hospital in D.C., on why this vaccine was so delayed and how they’re developed for children, and Patel gives advice for parents who might be concerned about the vaccine.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We're here today requesting emergency use authorization of mRNA-1223 as a two-dose primary |
| 0:08.9 | series for the prevention of COVID-19 in young children, two to five years of age and |
| 0:15.0 | infant and toddler, six to 23 months of age. |
| 0:19.3 | On Wednesday, an independent panel for the FDA recommended the use of coronavirus vaccines |
| 0:25.1 | for kids under five. |
| 0:26.6 | They're the only group in the U.S. that still does not have access to the vaccines. |
| 0:31.7 | But now that could change as early as next week. |
| 0:39.4 | For many parents of young kids, that announcement is long overdue. |
| 0:44.7 | First of all, it's the constant fear. |
| 0:47.7 | And I can say that as a parent, the constant fear of if and when is my child going to get |
| 0:55.0 | COVID and I unfortunately think that the rhetoric now is not if, but it is when because our |
| 1:02.0 | kids are not vaccinated and we have data to support that. |
| 1:06.2 | Dr. Anita Patel is a pediatric critical care doctor at Children's National Hospital in |
| 1:11.4 | Washington, D.C. |
| 1:13.6 | Since the beginning of the pandemic, she has been treating kids with the most severe |
| 1:17.8 | cases of COVID. |
| 1:19.8 | And you know, one of the big fears I have is a physician, frankly, is what are going to |
| 1:24.6 | be the long-term morbidity, long-term effects of all these COVID infections. |
| 1:30.4 | And I think for parents, such as myself, that are nervous and particularly parents that |
| 1:35.5 | are appropriately nervous because their kids have underlying medical conditions, it's going |
| 1:40.1 | to allow us to live. |
| 1:42.7 | It's going to allow us to live with the knowledge that our kids, you know, even if they don't |
... |
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