White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha said on Sunday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will decide in the next few weeks on whether children under the age of 5 can get a COVID-19 vaccine booster shot.
The comment comes after the FDA approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 boosters for emergency use in children ages 5 through 11. On May 19, a panel of vaccine advisers for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) voted to recommend that children in this age group get a Pfizer booster dose.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky signed off the panel’s recommendation later that day, saying that vaccination among this age group “has lagged behind” other age groups. “With over 18 million doses administered in this age group, we know that these vaccines are safe, and we must continue to increase the number of children who are protected,” Walensky said in a statement….