i m john berman with brianna keilar. it is monday, september 20th. the breaking news this morning comes in the fight against covid-19, this morning just a short time ago, pfizer released its first data on its vaccines for children as young as 5. the company says, now this is data coming from the company, it has not been peer reviewed, the company says the coronavirus vaccine is safe for that group and it shows a robust antibody response. now this is a trial that included participants ages 5 to 11 who took a two-dose regimen and used just a third of the amount of vaccine that would be administered to people who are 12 and older. pfizer says the levels compared well with older people who received the larger dose and the company says it now plans to submit for emergency use authorization from the fda soon, and that it is expecting trial data for children as young as six months, as soon as the fourth quarter of this year. joining us is dr. tanya
pore through this data? i agree this is exciting news. so many parents are waiting for exactly this news, especially given what s happening now with the delta variant. there have been nearly half a million new cases in children in the last two weeks. 29% of the new infections are in kids and parents want to do everything we can to protect our kids. knowing that the vaccine is safe in this younger age group the 5 to 11 group and also knowing that it appears to be effective at least based on antibody response. we know thus far for adults the antibody response correlates with the effectiveness in preventing disease. we want to see the data eventually and it s also important for fizer to efier to submit to the fda soon and when the information is available. the timing is important for so many parents especially coming into the cold winter season. dr. altman, when might i know we can t say exactly when it will be available for kids 5
altman, pediatrician and spokesperson for the american academy of pediatrician and dr. lena nguyen also with us. dr. altman, i want to start with you, the impact of this announcement. sure. you know, i think this is really exciting, as a pediatrician and parent of a 6-year-old who is the only child in my household not yet vaccinated, this will make a huge difference in the fight against covid-19 and parents, pediatricians and teachers are waiting for this. it is very needed and i think the data looks good and i m waiting for the fda and i hope they will thoroughly and aggressively review this data, so when it is time and appropriate, we can get shots in arms into our younger kids. dr. nguyen, this is a robust antibody response pfizer said and shows safety among the 2,000-plus kids in the trial. it doesn t get into efficacy, 90% effective against prep venting infection. what do you want to see when you
really promising because this is the 10 microgram dose so a third of what the adults are getting. that s why the data is so important. they ve seen with the lower dose in this 5 to 11-year-old group it seems to stimulate the same type of antibody response, according to pfizer, as the one that is a higher dose, and so i think that again gives a lot of confidence that the antibody response is a correlate to effectiveness as we have seen in adults and i think really paves the way for authorization hopefully very soon. dr. altman, we were looking at some of the data from 12 to 17-year-olds and it s about 46% of them are fully vaccinated so it s half, right? so in order for this to make a real impact among 5 to 11-year-olds, they have to get the shots. they do, and that is something that we are really working on. we are educating families, many schools are now putting in mandates. we are also bringing the vaccine to those neighborhoods where they really need access, so
micrograms. so even less than the 5 to 11-year-olds. the data is not complete. the studies are not yet complete. there are still many little ones in that trial, but i expect that over the next few months, that data will also be released and we will be looking at an fda eua in that age group over the next few months, so that means everyone down to 6 months of age will be protected against covid-19 with a safe and tolerable vaccine that does produce an antibody level to protect against serious disease, illness and hospitalization, and again, this is really what we ve all been waiting for and what we need for our communities, for our schools to get everybody back to a more normal, healthy and safe life. i m ready to get back to normal. i ll tell you that. i have a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old and we re living by their restrictions obviously, to keep them safe and it would be lovely that everyone would have the opportunity to be protected. dr. tanya altman, dr. leana wen,