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Hi and welcome to COVID Quickly, a scientific American podcast series.

This is your fast track update on the COVID pandemic. We bring you up to speed on the science behind

the most urgent questions about the virus and the disease. We demystify the research and help

you understand what it really means. I'm Tanya Lewis. I'm Josh Fishman. And we are

scientific American senior health editors. Today vaccines for the littlest kids may be almost here.

And new evidence about long COVID shows who gets it most often and what the most common symptoms are.

It's been nearly a year and a half since COVID vaccines were authorized for adults in the U.S.

Yet kids under five are still not eligible, even though testing in children began over six months

ago. Could this be about to change, Tanya? Possibly. I can understand why many parents are frustrated.

They've been told for months that a vaccine is right around the corner, but they have been some

promising developments. Like what? Have there been good results from these tests? Just a couple of

weeks ago, vaccine maker Moderna announced it was filing for emergency use authorization for its

vaccine for kids ages six months to six years. And Pfizer recently announced in a press release

that its vaccine was 80% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID in kids under five, although they

haven't made the data public yet. Does that get us any closer to getting a green light from the FDA, though?

Well, Siam contributor Charlie Schmidt asked experts about when we can expect a vaccine for the

littlest ones, what the reasons are for the hold up and more. The FDA's advisory committee for

vaccines is scheduled to meet June 8th, 21st and 22nd to discuss making younger children eligible.

...