Fauci: Covid-19 school vaccine warrants are a “good idea”

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“I think forcing vaccinations for kids to show up at school is a good idea,” Fauci told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

Fauci acknowledged that there will be many people who will back down from the idea, but said he believes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as well as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises Control and Prevention Centers of U.S. Diseases, will establish a good benefit-risk ratio, especially considering that the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine now has full FDA approval.
An intense debate has focused on vaccine mandates for schoolchildren, although none of the widely available Covid-19 vaccines in the U.S. have yet been authorized for use in children under 12 years of age. they have become more prominent in recent months, as the highly transmissible Delta Covid-19 variant has led to an increase in cases, especially among young Americans.

Fauci, who acts as director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, stressed Sunday that the idea of ​​forcing vaccines on children in schools is not new.

“This is nothing new. We have mandates in many places in schools, especially public schools, that if you actually want a child to come in, we have done so for decades and decades needing (vaccines for) polio, the measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis, ”he said. “So that wouldn’t be a new thing, it would require vaccines for kids to come to school.”

ACIP will meet on Monday to examine the safety and efficacy data for the fully approved Pfizer vaccine.

The former senior official has set a timetable for the approval of the childhood vaccine

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA commissioner who serves on Pfizer’s board, gave an additional look at the licensing schedule for a Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 on Sunday, and told CBS News that the drug manufacturer will be in a position to submit the data for authorization “sometime in September.”

Gottlieb went on to say that Pfizer could apply for emergency use authorization for this age group “potentially as early as October.”

“This will put us at a time when vaccines could be available sometime in the fall, most likely in the early winter, depending on how long it takes the FDA to review the application,” he said.

Gottlieb also noted that “historically, it has taken four to six weeks to review these authorizations,” but it may take longer depending on the amount of long-term monitoring data the FDA will require.

“They will base their decision on what the circumstances of the country are, what the urgency is, to come up with a vaccine for children,” Gottlieb said.

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