Fauci supports the mandate of the COVID-19 vaccine for U.S. schoolchildren

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (Reuters) – Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, said Sunday he supports COVID-19 vaccine warrants for school-going children as the variant highly contagious coronavirus Delta continues to fuel an increase in cases in the nation.

“I think forcing vaccines for kids to show up at school is a good idea,” Fauci told CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “We’ve been doing this for decades and decades, requiring vaccines against polio, measles, mumps, rubella and hepatitis.”

Currently, children under the age of 12 are not eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. But Fauci, in a separate interview on ABC’s “This Week” program, said there should be enough data in early October for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to consider whether the shooting is safe for children under this age.

“I think there’s a reasonable chance” that Pfizer-BioNTech (PFE.N) (22UAy.DE) or Modern (MRNA.O) vaccines can get FDA approval for children under 12 before the next holiday season, Fauci, the director of said the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to the White House last Tuesday.

As schools reopen for the fall, the rise in coronavirus cases is already causing major alterations.

Dozens of schools across the country have had to delay the start of the school year or close them since opening in August, according to data from the Burbio monitoring website. Their data show that the impact on schools so far has been strongest in the south, the epicenter of the current increase in cases and where vaccination rates among people who are already eligible are generally the lowest in the country. .

The reopening of schools also contributes to the shortage of supply of COVID-19 tests in the United States, as schools recover surveillance programs that will require tens of millions of tests, industry executives and health officials reported. state, Reuters reported last week.

Report by Linda So Edited by Paul Simao

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