Getting vaccines ready for young kids
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2022
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For many parents of young kids, the news that Pfizer and BioNTech are seeking emergency-use authorization for a coronavirus vaccine for children younger than 5 couldn’t have come soon enough. What we know — and don’t know — at this point in the process.
Read more:
Earlier this week, The Washington Post reported that coronavirus vaccines for children younger than 5 could be available far sooner than expected — perhaps by the end of February — under a plan that would lead to the potential authorization of a two-shot regimen in the coming weeks.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the regulatory strategy here, says science reporter Carolyn Y. Johnson. But for parents of young children, this news may feel like a light at the end of the tunnel.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | On Tuesday, Pfizer officially began submitting data to the FDA to potentially get two doses |
| 0:11.4 | authorized for kids between six months old and five years old. |
| 0:15.2 | Carolyn Johnson covers science for the post. |
| 0:21.4 | This would be the kind of last age group to become eligible for a vaccine and with the |
| 0:27.6 | Omicron surge, there's been a lot of parents dealing with quarantines and constant closures |
| 0:36.2 | navigating a lot of uncertainty. So there's huge interest in this vaccine. |
| 0:42.0 | For so many families around the country, this development is an enormous deal. |
| 0:47.3 | This faint glimmer of hope that maybe someday soon their lives will get more normal. |
| 0:53.1 | But understanding what this announcement actually means is a little complicated. |
| 1:00.0 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
| 1:03.6 | I'm routine powers. It's Wednesday, February 2nd. Today, what we know so far about the two |
| 1:10.4 | dose Pfizer vaccine for children under five. And the questions that our reporters still have. |
| 1:26.0 | It is rare for kids to get seriously ill from COVID, but more kids were hospitalized with COVID |
| 1:32.2 | during this recent surge than in previous waves. And that's why there's this push to try to make |
| 1:37.2 | a vaccination plan for young kids as quickly as possible. Pfizer has started submitting data |
| 1:43.1 | about the trials they conducted on young kids with two doses of the vaccine. But they're also |
| 1:48.4 | going to keep going on trials for giving kids three doses. We wanted to know from Carolyn what |
| 1:53.8 | the timeline for that could actually look like. So the company announced yesterday that they are |
| 2:00.4 | submitting data. Right now, they're submitting two dose data. We don't really know what it says, |
| 2:07.0 | but we will find out probably next week because prior to this meeting of experts, |
| 2:14.7 | what happens is the company and the FDA both separately post a big data dump of everything |
| 2:22.3 | they're presenting. So you get the company's point of view about what the data shows. You also get |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Washington Post, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Washington Post and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.