Dr. Fauci says high school students could get vaccinated in the fall

High school students could receive a coronavirus vaccine this coming fall semester and elementary students the first quarter of next school year, Dr. Anthony Fauci projected Sunday, citing ongoing tests on the ability of vaccines to protect against safety children.

“Maybe it’s not the first day,” Fauci said of high school student vaccine eligibility on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” “but certainly in the early fall of this school year. autumn “

Johnson & Johnson and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are currently approved for those over 18 years of age, while the Pfizer vaccine is authorized for 16-year-olds.

Pfizer and Moderna have completed enrollment in vaccine studies in children as young as 12, with the results of those studies potentially published this summer. Both companies expect to begin studies with children 11 years of age or younger later this year, The Associated Press reported.

At the same time, Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, urged Americans not to drop their guard and to continue practicing social distancing and wearing a mask because daily cases are likely to rise again before reach the immunity of the herd.

New daily case counts have risen to 60,000 to 70,000 cases after several weeks of falling, he said. History has shown that when cases have plateaus, they do not begin to fall: they increase. Current conditions in Europe are also an indicator that there is a potential increase in cases on the US horizon, he said.

“They’re usually a couple of weeks ahead of these patterns,” Fauci said of COVID-19 counts in European countries. “They also went down, then they stagnated and, over the past week, they’ve had a 9% increase in cases.”

Fauci urged: “Let’s go in the right direction. We just need to stay a little longer.”