FDA authorizes Pfizer coronavirus vaccine for adolescents 12 to 15 years old
Source: Washington Post
The Food and Drug Administration cleared the first coronavirus vaccine for emergency use in children as young as 12 on Monday, expanding access to the Pfizer-BioNTech shot to adolescents ahead of the next school year and marking another milestone in the nation’s battle with the virus. The decision that the two-shot regimen is safe and effective for younger adolescents had been highly anticipated by many parents and pediatricians, particularly with the growing gap between what vaccinated and unvaccinated people may do safely.
Evidence suggests that schools can function at low risk with prevention measures, such as masks and social distancing. But vaccines are poised to increase confidence in resuming in-person activities and are regarded as pivotal to returning to normalcy. “Adolescents, especially, have suffered tremendously from the covid pandemic. Even though they’re less likely than adults to be hospitalized or have severe illness, their lives really have been curtailed in many parts of the country,” said Kawsar R. Talaat, an assistant professor of international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “A vaccine gives them an extra layer of protection and allows them to go back to being kids.”
Expert advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are scheduled to meet Wednesday to recommend how the vaccine should be used in that age group, and the vaccine can be administered as soon as the CDC director signs off on the recommendation.Children rarely suffer serious bouts of covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. But there is no way to predict the few who will become dangerously sick or develop a rare, dangerous inflammatory syndrome.
Out of more than 581,000 covid-19 deaths in the United States, about 300 have been people under 18 — a tiny fraction of the total. But that exceeds the number of children who die in a bad flu season. Children appear to be less efficient at spreading the virus, although their role in transmission is still not fully understood — another reason for pediatric vaccinations. Clinicians also worry that with a new virus with many unknowns, the possibility exists for long-term impacts of infection, even from the mild or asymptomatic courses of illness common among children.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/05/10/coronavirus-vaccine-for-kids/
= new reply since forum marked as read
We want to travel again.
We want to go places in public as a family again (instead of individually only).
We'd just like to feel like we can congregate with my father again without added risks.
For the anti-vaccination crowd, I pity you and your offspring. I'd say much more, but it always swerves into very hostile thoughts, so much like Mr. T from years ago...
Finally, the light at the end of the tunnel is brighter and I had the night off. Just want to get them in and get this all started so we can do things as a family again. But I will call tomorrow 
