This Is the First Thing to Expect From a COVID Vaccine for Young Children
The wait for the COVID-19 vaccine for children has been agonizing. The 5 to 11 age group finally received their vaccine last month , almost a year after vaccines were approved for adults. But the contingent of children under 5 is still waiting, and, unfortunately, they will wait even longer than we expected (or hoped).
This is because Pfizer announced that their trials of the COVID vaccine for young children were unsuccessful . They assigned a two-dose regimen to children aged 6 months to 4 years, and only a few of these children eventually had an adequate immune response to declare the vaccines effective.
There are two small good news here: First, the vaccine was found to be safe for this age group, and the side effects were minimal. So from a safety standpoint , the vaccine works great. The other good news is that the youngest children, between 6 and 24 months old, have an immune response comparable to what young people get from the vaccine.
The bad news is that 2, 3, and 4 year olds did not get a good enough immune response from the two-dose series tested. If that were the case, Pfizer would probably have applied for permission right away. But since they didn’t, we’ll have to wait.
What’s next?
The company’s plan is to add a third dose to the batch for children of this age, two months after the second. In practice, this means you have to take one dose, wait three weeks, then the second, then wait two months, and then get the third. It’s almost like an early booster.
If this strategy works, the company expects to apply for a vaccine permit for children 6 months to 5 years of age in the second quarter of 2022, which is April, May or June.
In the meantime, they are already testing a booster dose for older children. It may be that even a series of vaccines for adults should have three doses, since three appears to be better than two against Omicron, and the three-dose regimen is already recommended as the standard for immunocompromised people.
Moderna is also testing its vaccine in children under 12, but has yet to announce the results.