Pfizer request to allow kids' COVID shots a key step, LI experts say
Pfizer asks U.S. to allow COVID shots for kids ages 5 to 11
Nurse Michelle Chester gets ready to administer the Pfizer booster shot on Wednesday at Northwell Health in New Hyde Park. Credit: Newsday/Alejandra Villa Loarca
The Food and Drug Administration will decide if there's enough evidence the shots are safe and work in younger children as they do in teens and adults. An independent expert panel will publicly debate the evidence on Oct. 26.
If regulators give the go-ahead, reduced-dose kids' shots could begin within a matter of weeks for the roughly 28 million U.S. children ages 5 to 11. The current age cutoff for COVID-19 vaccinations in the U.S. is 12.
This is a major step in the battle to bring the pandemic to an end, medical experts on Long Island said. But health providers also face a challenge, given polls show many parents are hesitant to vaccinate children, they said.
"We need to be able to have the entire family protected from COVID," said Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of the division of pediatric diseases at Stony Brook Children's Hospital. "And ignoring children or leaving them out of the vaccination equation just allows them to get sick and bring something back to the rest of the family where other people will be at risk."
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said their research shows the younger kids should get one-third of the dose now given to everyone else. After their second dose, the 5- to 11-year-olds developed virus-fighting antibody levels just as strong as those that teens and young adults get from regular-strength shots.
Plus: A state mandate for home health care workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or be fired hit a deadline today. Read more.
The number of new positives reported today: 321 in Nassau, 453 in Suffolk, 1,565 in New York City and 5,243 statewide.
The chart below shows the trend of vaccination rates on Long Island.
This chart shows the percentages of Long Islanders who have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and those who have been fully vaccinated
Search a map of new cases, and view charts showing the latest local trends in new cases, testing, hospitalizations, deaths and more.
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Erin Serpico is an assistant web producer who joined Newsday in November 2018. Originally from New Jersey, she now covers community events and produces local content for newsday.com while also helping run the homepage.
