COVID vaccines for kids under 5 could be ready by March [Video]

• Children under five years old could get the COVID-19 vaccines by March, said Dr. Scott Gottlieb.
• Gottlieb said that authorization would still depend on whether officials would choose Pfizer’s two-dose candidate or the three-dose one.
• Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine was authorized for kids 5 and older last October.

The COVID-19 vaccines could be approved for kids under five years old by March, according to former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb.

Gottlieb made the estimate during an interview with anchor Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

The authorization would still depend on which vaccine candidate federal officials choose to move forward with: Pfizer’s two-dose candidate or the three-dose one added last month to the company’s clinical trials.

Approval could go faster for the two-dose shot since the trials on it are further ahead.

If federal health officials authorize the two-dose vaccine, they “could be out much sooner, perhaps as early as early March,” Gottlieb said.

However, Gottlieb said that officials are still looking into whether it provides enough protection for the age group amid the Omicron wave.

He explained that the timeline has changed after findings that “the childhood vaccine for 6 months to 4 years wasn’t as protective against infection as the adult vaccine.”

Pfizer had found that two shots didn’t produce a similar robust immune response in kids aged 2 to 5, when compared with adults. So, the company has revised its clinical trials to look into the effects of a third dose.

While the two-dose vaccine may not entirely stop infection for that age group, Gottlieb said that it can still “provide baseline immunity” that prevents severe symptoms and hospitalization.

So if the goal is to prevent severe disease instead of preventing infection, “two doses could do that,” he added.

Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted a “three-dose regimen” last Wednesday.

He clarified, however, that any regimen would still need approval by the FDA and then by the CDC.

Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine was authorized for kids aged 5 years and older in late October. A booster was also approved for anyone aged 12 and up.

Source: New York Post