High school students in the United States should be able to receive COVID-19 vaccinations by fall, and younger students are likely to be licensed for vaccinations in early 2022, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a senior U.S. official for Sunday, said. infectious diseases.
“We project that high school students will most likely be able to be vaccinated by the fall, maybe not on the very first day, but certainly in the early fall,” Fauci told CBS.
He said elementary school children will likely be ready to receive vaccinations by the first quarter of next year after safety studies are completed.
Currently, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are only approved for people 18 years of age and older, while the Pfizer shot is eliminated for those up to 16 years old.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said high school students may be eligible for shooting before the fall, and younger students are likely to be released for vaccinations in early 2022.
A student in Alexandria, Virginia looks at a tablet next to classmates at a desk surrounded by plastic shielding during a day of in-person hybrid learning
As further studies are conducted, it is expected that vaccines can be eliminated for younger children if they are shown to be safe and effective for children.
In most states, decisions about opening schools are made at the local level. Iowa, Arkansas, Texas and Florida have ordered all of their schools to remain open, and West Virginia requires elementary schools to hold classes.
Fauci also said he expects the CDC to issue relaxed guidelines for people who have already been vaccinated in the “next few days,” but called for continued vigilance on mitigation measures for more than 80 percent of Americans still waiting to be shot.
– We’re going in the right direction. We just have to stay there a little longer, ‘said Fauci.
“We want these levels of virus death to be very, very low and then we will have a much easier time to withdraw safely” on mitigation measures.
The United States now vaccinates an average of 2.1 million people a day – but gains in the virus over the past month have shown signs of decline.
Nationally, the US reported a 3% drop in new COVID-19 cases last week, a much smaller drop than in the last six weeks.
New cases fell by as much as 25 percent in the week ended Feb. 7 and 23 percent in the week ended Feb. 21, before payment last week, according to a Reuters analysis.
The decline in cases had begun to apply to 60,000 to 70,000 new infections a day, which Fauci said was not acceptable.
He stressed the need to continue masking warrants and other mitigation measures to avoid a recurrence as new variants emerge.
A new variant was spreading in the New York area and was proving “quite vigorous” in its ability to spread and somewhat circumvented the protection offered by monoclonal antibodies and vaccines, he said.
Signs calling for the reopening of schools in Los Angeles are displayed by people in passing vehicles during a “Open Schools Now” rally through the caravan last month
A student raises his hand to ask a question in Alexandria, Virginia, on March 2
“One of the things I think we should emphasize, with each passing day, keeping the lid on, things will get better and better, because we now put at least two million vaccinations in the arms of individuals every day.” he said.
“And as the days and weeks go by, you have more and more protection, not only for individuals, but for the community. So we are going in the right direction. We just need to stay there a little longer.
Fauci said the vaccine supply will be “dramatically increased” in the coming weeks as production increases.
The United States has administered 90,351,750 doses of COVID-19 vaccines since Sunday morning and distributed 116,363,405 doses, the CDC said.
The agency said 58,873,710 people received one or more doses, while 30,686,881 people received the second dose since Sunday.
A total of 7,389,102 doses of the vaccine were given in long-term care units, the agency said.