The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky has signed on to extend COVID-19 booster eligibility to all children over the age of 5, the agency said Thursday night.
Booster vaccines are now approved for use in children aged 5 to 11, at least five months after completing their first round of vaccination.
“Today I endorsed ACIP’s vote to expand eligibility for COVID-19 vaccine booster doses. Children aged 5 to 11 years should have a booster dose at least 5 months after their primary vaccination course. Vaccination with a primary series in this age group has lagged behind other age groups, making them vulnerable to serious diseases,” Walensky said in a press release. “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 protected. I encourage parents to keep their children updated with CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine recommendations.”
Following the recent resurgence of COVID-19 in the nation, the CDC also announced that it will be increasing its recommendation for Americans over the age of 12 who are immunocompromised, as well as everyone over the age of 50, to get their second booster shot.
“Over the past month we have seen a steady increase in cases, with a precipitous and significant increase in hospital admissions for older Americans. While older Americans have the highest coverage of any age group with first booster doses, most older Americans received their last dose (either their primary series or their first booster dose) many months ago, leaving many who are vulnerable without the protection they may need to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death,” the CDC wrote.
Earlier Thursday, the CDC’s Independent Advisory Committee gave the green light to Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 booster shots for children ages 5 to 11, paving the way for parents to get their children boosted as early as Friday morning.
The board voted 11-1-1 to approve.
“We have the tools we need to protect these people from serious illnesses and prevent more tragic deaths,” Walensky said in a short speech at the beginning of the meeting. “It’s important for us to anticipate where this pandemic is going and deploy the tools we have where they will have the greatest impact.”
Earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration approved use of the booster shots in younger children, to be used at least five months after completing their first round of vaccinations.
Children over 5 years of age were eligible for vaccination against COVID-19 in November, so the first children who were in line for their vaccination now had about six months of protection.
Pfizer asked the FDA in April to approve its booster vaccines for younger children after it presented data suggesting their vaccine was safe and elicited a strong immune response.
Vaccine efficacy after two doses against symptomatic infections “decreased rapidly in children and adolescents during Omicron,” said Dr. Ruth Link-Gelles, who leads the COVID-19 vaccine efficacy program for the CDC’s epidemiology task force, on Thursday. A booster dose in adolescents significantly improved efficacy – by up to 71% – in the weeks and months after receiving the third dose.
Othello Station Pharmacy’s Ahmed Ali gives Loic Schlagel, 9, the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as his father Kyle and brother Remi, 6, watch him during a Seattle Public Schools day clinic in Bailey Gatzert- Seattle Elementary School, November 8, 2021
The efficacy of the vaccine against post-dose hospitalization for children aged 5 to 11 years ranged from about 68% to a median of 37 days after the second dose, while efficacy in adolescents was about 51%.
Analyzing the diminishing effectiveness of the vaccine for hospitalization in adolescents who received two doses, “some fading” was evident. However, Link-Gelles reported that there weren’t enough data to assess the decreasing effectiveness in children aged 5 to 11 or the effects of booster shots against hospitalization in children aged 12 to 15.
The benefits of the booster dose outweighed any known and potential risks, and a booster dose can help ensure ongoing protection against COVID-19, officials said, especially amid concerns about waning immunity.
Many panelists argued that the pandemic is not over and continues to pose a risk to all Americans, including young children, and so immunizations and boosters remain critical to protecting all ages.
“As a mother, infectious disease specialist and member of [the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices]my children are older than this age cohort, but if they were still in this age cohort, I would give my children this booster shot,” said Dr. Camille Kotton, clinical director for the Department of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Vaccination has provided “measurable, demonstrable” benefits in preventing “a wide range of health outcomes, including infections, emergency room visits, hospitalizations and critical illnesses” in adults, Dr. Matthew Daley, senior researcher at the Institute for Health Research at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, said and claimed that the same is likely true for young children.
“It just wouldn’t make sense that 5- to 11-year-olds are the only age group that doesn’t require a third dose to achieve a more sustained and effective immune response,” Daley said.
The panelists added that plans for future booster vaccinations for children this fall are still unclear, making it a timely and important decision to allow families access to booster vaccinations now.
Ultimately, the goal of vaccines is to prevent serious illness and death, claimed several panelists, adding that the benefits of vaccinating children to protect them from severe forms of COVID-19 are clear.
A child receives a dose of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine at a school immunization launch event in Los Angeles, November 5, 2021.
“The goal isn’t to prevent all infections, it’s to prevent serious illness, and the data shown was quite compelling that a third dose would reduce hospitalization, it would decrease MIS-C, it would decrease post-COVID. All of these are serious complications that children have. And so I really think that’s the direction we should be going,” added Dr. Katherine A. Poehling, Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology and Prevention.
Some panelists expressed concern about the need for booster shots in children aged 5 to 11, given the large proportion of children who have recently been infected with COVID-19 during the Omicron surge.
dr Sarah S. Long, a professor of pediatrics at Drexel University College of Medicine, explained that with infection rates rising, “now is not the time” to nurture younger children.
“I don’t think this is the right time to give 75% of the kids a boost – I think most of them have had infections recently,” Long argued.
Other experts stressed that doctors and officials should remain focused on getting more children vaccinated with their first primary vaccine, especially given the country’s recent spike in pediatric COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations.
Only 43% of eligible children ages 5 to 17 have been fully vaccinated to date, according to federal data. An even smaller proportion – less than 30% – of children aged 5 to 11 have been fully vaccinated and would therefore be eligible for a booster shot.
In January, the FDA approved use of a booster shot in youth ages 12 to 15, with 3.7 million youth having received a booster shot since then, according to the CDC.
Overall, 25.7 million children over the age of 5 – about half of those eligible – remain completely unvaccinated, including 18.2 million children aged 5 to 11.
“Boosters are great once they all get their first round and I think that has to be a priority,” Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot, Associate Professor of Medicine, Department of Infectious Diseases and Public Health Policy, Vanderbilt University,
More than 93,000 additional COVID-19 cases in children were reported last week, up about 76% from two weeks ago, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
The average number of children’s hospital admissions has increased by 70% in the last month, according to CDC data, and on average nearly 180 virus-positive children are admitted to hospitals each day.