It is unlikely that a vaccine for children will be approved before the end of the year.
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The approval of the COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5-11 years old may be delayed until 2021, when parents and caregivers will have to wait. In an interview with NPR's Morning Edition, Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, shared this news.
Collins stated that Moderna and Pfizer are still gathering trial data to determine, among other things, if young children should be given a lower dose of vaccine than the one approved for adults.
Collins stated that Pfizer could submit data to the Food and Drug Administration by September for review. Collins said that he was not optimistic about the approval of Pfizer's data for children aged 5-11 years old before 2021.
Collins' comments come just one day after Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccination for adults 16 and over was fully approved by the FDA. Through the emergency use authorization, the vaccine is still available to children between 12 and 15.
The NIH director also spoke out on the controversy surrounding schools that require children to wear masks. Collins stated that he is "puzzled" at the debate and said there is plenty of evidence that masks can help to prevent COVID-19 epidemics.
Many states, including Arizona, Florida, Texas and Florida, have prohibited school districts from requiring the wearing of masks. However, large urban districts like Phoenix and Dallas have defied these orders. These embattled leaders have been supported by the U.S. Department of Education and Biden Administration. They even threatened states with civil rights investigations, if students feel that they are unable to safely learn due to a lack of masking.
Collins stated that masking would ultimately help schools remain open.
"If you want not to have an outbreak that sends all the children home again, then you need to do everything you can to prevent that." Collins explained to NPR that masks are necessary. "And by the side, if someone tries to claim that masks decrease infection in schools, that's simply not true. Numerous publications from both the U.S. as well as other countries have shown that this is the case. "So, boy, I wish that we could end this fight."
Collins stated that it's a fight that hinders "what is going be a difficult enough fall as is".
