COVID, Quickly, is a scientific Americanpodcast series.
This is a quick update on the COVID Pandemic. We will show you the science behind the questions about the disease and the virus. We help you understand the research.
I'm Tanya Lewis.
Josh Fischman is the person.
Senior health editors from Scientific American. The vaccines for the littlest kids are almost here.
New evidence shows who gets it most often and what the most common symptoms are.
It has been nearly a year and a half since the US government authorized COVID vaccines for adults. Could this be about to change?
Lewis said it was possible. Many parents are frustrated. They have been told for months that a vaccine is on the way. There have been some promising developments.
Like what? Is there any good results from the tests?
Moderna filed for emergency use authorization for its vaccine for kids ages six months to six years. Pfizer recently announced in a press release that its vaccine was 80 percent effective at preventing COVID in kids under five, although they haven't made the data public yet.
Does that make us any closer to getting a green light from the FDA?
SciAm contributor Charlie Schmidt asked experts about when we can expect a vaccine for the littlest ones, what the reasons are, and more. The FDA's vaccine advisory committee is scheduled to meet in June to discuss making younger children eligible.
Is Charlie aware of what might happen at these meetings?
Lewis spoke with Arnold Monto, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Monto said the FDA could issue an EUA for kids within a day or two of those meetings, but there are no guarantees.
Why don't we just authorize it for all the kids?
The FDA has a high bar for approving new vaccines for children. The companies have to show that their vaccines don't cause other problems because kids already have a low risk of serious outcomes from COVID.
So far, they haven't seen any serious safety issues?
Most of the side effects have been mild and similar to those seen in older kids or adults. Pfizer and Moderna have been able to achieve strong immune responses even at low doses, which reduces the risks. There have been no cases of myocarditis, the heart inflammation that occurred in rare cases among teenagers, mostly in boys.
The vaccines seem to be safe. That's good. How effective are they?
That is a great question. The initial data came from looking at the immune response to the vaccine in people who are given it. If you compare these levels to levels seen in older kids or adults who had good protection against getting COVID, you can get protection for young kids. This is a type of immunity.
The immune system and how it behaves is something that that is being looked at. What about the real world? Is the vaccine lower in children's infections?
Pfizer has only announced data on about 1,700 kids, showing an efficacy rate for three doses of 80.3 percent. The efficacy rate for the two dose vaccine for kids under six was lower. The FDA's bar remains to be seen, whether or not that will clear it.
Ok, interesting. That is a big spread in efficacy. Is the FDA waiting for Pfizer's data to be in before evaluating Moderna's data?
That has been a point of contention. The agency was holding off on reviewing Moderna's submission until Pfizer came in. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf told Andy Slavitt that there was no reason for the FDA. Pfizer expects to submit its data by the time the FDA's advisory committee meets in June, so they may end up reviewing both Pfizer's and Moderna's data at the same time.
Like a lot of worried parents, we will be watching that closely.
It is becoming clear that acute COVID isn't the only consequence of the disease. Symptoms that drag on are a real problem. Two new reports show who gets it and what it looks like.
There is no strict definition of long carbon dioxide. It is estimated that between 10 to 30 percent of people with the virus will have at least one symptom, a real disabling problem, for at least a month after they have cleared it.
A new report from the CDC said that one out of five people with the same disease could develop long Covid. What are the most common problems?
According to a new study, serious fatigue, the kind that exhausts you after walking from one room in your house to another, is what affects people most often. There is trouble catching your breath, loss of smell, headaches, insomnia, and memory trouble. Difficult concentrating is what people call brain fog.
The first report from a long-term study being done by the National Institutes of Health came from new research in the Annals of Internal Medicine. After testing positive for the virus, these people were assessed.
Lewis: Are a lot of these people older?
It seems that advanced age doesn't seem to be a big risk factor. Younger people are more likely to be diagnosed with post-COVID conditions. That comes from a huge analysis of private health insurance claims done on more than 78,000 people.
They found that women were more likely to have long- lasting problems than men. About 60 percent compared to 40 percent?
Yes, they did. Severe disease wasn't a risk factor. Most of the people hadn't been hospitalized. You can have a mild case and still suffer.
It isn't an easy condition to diagnose for long COVID patients. Is there any new information on that?
The study confirmed the difficulty. The people in the study were put through a lot of tests, but they didn't find a lot of problems.
The tests aren't good enough, so that means the condition is real. It is a warning to doctors not to dismiss patients. The population is growing and physicians need to find treatments.
Lewis: Now you are up to speed. Thanks for joining us. Our show is edited by two people.
Come back in two weeks for the next episode. Check outSciAm.com for updated and in-depth COVID news.
The above text is a transcript.
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