SEATTLE — Dr. Avantika Waring, a Seattle-based physician, has three sons standing by for authorization to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
She said her eldest son, who is 11 going on 12 years old, is as eager as she is to be vaccinated.
“He's a little anxious I think about the process, but he also realizes he's very social, so it's going to allow him to do a lot of the things he wants to do,” said Waring.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to authorize the vaccine for people age 12 and older by early this week.
A federal vaccine advisory committee is then scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss whether to recommend Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds. A draft agenda posted online says a vote could happen Wednesday afternoon.
Waring noted how resilient children have been through the pandemic, and opening up vaccinations to adolescents would be an additional step toward returning to normal.
“They’ve really made the best out of all of the changes that have been coming at them, but I still think there are significant benefits to them being to have a little bit more of that in-person interaction,” said Waring.
In late March, Pfizer released preliminary results from a vaccine study of 2,260 U.S. volunteers ages 12 to 15, which showed its shot provided protection for the younger group.
The children enrolled in the study had side effects similar to young adults, Pfizer said. The main side effects are pain, fever, chills and fatigue, particularly after the second dose.
Pfizer and BioNTech recently announced they started the process to request full approval from the FDA for their mRNA coronavirus vaccine for adults 16 and older.
The FDA has only given Emergency Use Authorization in December 2020 for the two-dose vaccine to be used on individuals 16 years of age and older. Since receiving the Emergency Use Authorization, more than 170 million doses of the vaccine have been delivered across the U.S.