Consider This from NPR - Booster Guidance For All 3 Vaccines; Shots For Kids Weeks Away

Episode Date: October 26, 2021

The CDC has now released booster guidance for all three vaccines available in the U.S. — making tens of millions of people eligible for another shot. And on Tuesday, an FDA panel met to review data from Pfizer on their vaccine for children ages 5 - 11. NPR's Alison Aubrey explains what those data say about the vaccine — and how it might be rolled out. Pediatrician Dr. Reah Boyd tells NPR how she's talking to parents about vaccinating their young children. Additional reporting in this episode from NPR's Pien Huang, Rob Stein, and Selena Simmons-Duffin. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. Here's some good news about the pandemic. At the peak of the Delta surge, the U.S. was seeing around 150,000 new cases of the coronavirus each day. That was about two months ago. But this past week? The seven-day daily average of cases was about 73,000 cases per day, which represents a decrease of about 15 percent over the previous week. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Friday hospital admissions were also down 10 percent.

And the number of people dying each day, still around 1,200, is down from a delta peak of around 1,800. Those are all good trends for the nation's most important COVID metrics. But there is another number that public health officials are still worried about. Currently, around 64 million Americans remain unvaccinated, leaving themselves and their children, their families, their loved ones and communities vulnerable. States like Alabama, West Virginia and Wyoming have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, with barely 40 percent of their populations fully protected. And in those places, the virus is still spreading pretty quickly.

I think we have to be very careful. Here's what epidemiologist Celine Gounder told NPR this week. Yes, things are trending in the right direction, but we're far from being on the other side of this. That's because we know from past experience that when trend lines look good, people tend to ease up on public health measures. They might go out to eat more, see a concert or a movie without a mask.

Not to mention, with the holidays approaching, more people will be gathering indoors. I think that is going to set off maybe not a huge surge, but certainly a wave of cases. Consider this. Right now, the numbers are headed in the right direction, and the public health effort to keep them that way is about to enter a new phase, with booster shots recommended for a growing number of people and vaccines for kids right around the corner. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapcom. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. The CDC has now spelled out booster guidance for all three COVID vaccines available in the U.S. If you got the Johnson & Johnson shot, your situation is

the simplest. Here's CDC Director Rochelle Walensky again. Everybody is eligible if you got your dose more than two months ago. So anybody who got J&J, if their dose is more than two months ago, then they are eligible for a boost. If you got Pfizer or Moderna, it gets a little more complicated. Anyone who got those shots more than six months ago and who is over the age of 65 can now get a booster. So can anyone who lives in a long-term care facility. And you're eligible if you're over the age of 18 and you have underlying medical conditions or you live or work in a high-risk place. The important point here, you don't have to get boosted with the same vaccine you got initially. The CDC says mixing and matching is okay.

In fact, some studies show that people who got Johnson & Johnson might get more protection if they get a different vaccine booster. You know, we will not articulate a preference. My understanding is that most people have done largely well with the initial vaccine that they got. There may be some people who might prefer another vaccine over the one that they received, and the current CDC recommendations now make that possible. The White House says about 70 million Americans are eligible for a booster right now. Millions more will become eligible over the next few months. That's millions of adults who will soon be able to get a second or third dose of vaccine, while millions of kids will soon be

eligible for their first. If you look at the data that's been made public, the data look good as to the efficacy and the safety. Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke to ABC News this week ahead of an FDA advisory panel meeting to review data on Pfizer's vaccine for kids 5 to 11. And in fact, just this afternoon, the FDA gave the green light for Pfizer's shot, kids 5 to 11. And in fact, just this afternoon, the FDA gave the green light for Pfizer's shot, opening the door for recommendation from the CDC. So if all goes well and we get the regulatory approval and the recommendation from the CDC,

it's entirely possible, if not very likely, that vaccines will be available for children from 5 to 11 within the first week or two of November. For many parents, it's been a long wait. True, most kids with COVID don't get super sick, but there have been more than 1.8 million cases of the coronavirus in kids 5 to 11, and thousands of them have wound up in the hospital. That is the backdrop for the FDA's review of Pfizer's vaccine data this week.

NPR's Alison Aubrey looked at that data, and she explained the takeaways and what vaccine rollout for kids will look like to Audie Cornish. What exactly does the clinical trial data from Pfizer in particular show about vaccinations in children from this age group? Sure. Data from more than 2,000 children shows the vaccine was about 91% effective against symptomatic infection. There were no cases of serious illness, no cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome. Children received one-third of the dose of adults, which was enough to be effective, but also chosen to minimize side effects. Now, I spoke to

pediatrician David Kimberlin of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is also a liaison representative to the CDC's Vaccine Advisory Committee. Having this vaccine available for 5 through 11-year-olds is not only going to protect the child, but also protect the child's loved ones. You know, we've already lost over 500 children to this virus. Now, with this likely authorization over the next week or two, I really think we're going to have a tool to be able to prevent that. So if it's authorized in the coming days, how will this work in terms of distribution? Sure. Pediatricians have been preparing for this for months, and thousands are already offering the vaccine to older kids 12 and up in their offices. In addition, retail pharmacies are ready too. A spokesperson for CVS tells me they are prepared to vaccinate 5 to 11 year olds. Now remember, it's a lower dose. It's a different product. Pfizer has designed orange packaging for the new vials. I spoke to pediatrician Lee Savio-Beers. She's president

of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She tells me it's going to take a bit of time to get the new pediatric vaccines distributed. It does appear that there is plenty of vaccine supply available, but I think also for parents to know that it won't be an instantaneous as soon as the vaccine is recommended by the CDC. You know, it may be a day or two or three before everything is really fully up and running. So bottom line, Adi, be patient. But you're saying that like there's a pent up demand. I mean, do pediatricians think most families will actually bring their five to 11 year olds in to get a COVID vaccine? Well, about 44% of adolescents 12 to 17 years old have been fully vaccinated.

So that's one data point. And a recent poll from the COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project found about two-thirds of parents of 5 to 11-year-olds do plan to vaccinate their children. Now, this poll was done before there was data out to show the vaccine appears to be safe and effective. Here's Dr. Kimberlin again. I would expect we're still going to have kind of that initial rush of 20 or 30 percent of the population rushing out to get the vaccine. Another, you know, pretty substantial chunk holding back for a while and hopefully a small percentage, but a percentage will say, no, we're never going to get that for our child. Now, Kimberlin says he hopes that this careful process of evaluation by the FDA and CDC will

give parents confidence to opt for the vaccine. So again, what is expected is for the FDA to weigh in on authorization, followed by CDC recommendations in early November. NPR's Alison Aubrey. Making young kids eligible for a vaccine is one thing. Whether their parents or caretakers decide to get them vaccinated is another thing entirely. Many will be talking about this with their kid's pediatrician. NPR recently spoke to one about those conversations. Dr. Rhea Boyd is a pediatrician and public health advocate. She spoke to Sarah McCammon.

When you talk to parents who have questions about this vaccine, who are thinking about getting it for their kids when it becomes available, first of all, what kinds of questions do they have and how do you talk to them? What we're hearing from parents and caregivers is that they actually have pretty specific questions about their own child's medical history and whether or not the vaccine's safe for their child in the context of that medical history. So what I've heard in particular is from parents like, what if my child has special needs? Is the COVID vaccine safe for them? Or what if they have a seizure disorder or a chronic illness like diabetes? And so because of those very specific concerns, the communications campaigns

are actually going to have to be pretty tailored to parents' concerns, and we're going to have to make sure that parents can connect to providers that they trust and that they reliably go to to have those questions answered. Dr. Boyd, you've done a lot of work on reaching communities of color as co-developer of The Conversation, a national information campaign to bring accurate information about the COVID vaccine to Black and Latinx communities. What are your thoughts on the White House communication plan to reach those groups of people? What we're thrilled to see is that they are talking about a unified communication campaign. So unfortunately, I think the adult vaccine rollout

was complicated by some conflicting messages. And what we know about the 5-11 rollout is that we have to be consistent and clear with parents. And so from the announcement today, we hear that the White House is working with HHS to have a unified communications campaign to make sure that wherever parents prefer to receive their information, there is no wrong door for them to have access to the credible science about how the vaccines work. And that's what we know is critical for our Black and Latinx communities as well. We know that equity has been a challenge with this pandemic, and it has highlighted inequities along racial lines, for example. How concerned are you about specifically

the vaccine rollout for children in that regard? Racial equity in the vaccine rollout for 5 to 11 year olds is perhaps even more important than it has been for adults, and I'll tell you why. We know that 48 million kids in this country are under age 12, and more than half of that group are children of color, And the vast majority are Black and Latinx children. And when we look at the vaccination patterns among adults, we see that Black and Latinx adults had the lower vaccination rates when you disaggregate by race and ethnic group. And so what we are concerned about is that those same inequities might exist for kids. And so we have to make sure that we're doing everything that it takes to eliminate all the access barriers

so that Black and Latinx kids can also get the COVID vaccine, just like every other racial and ethnic group. It has been a long pandemic. I know all too well that it's been tough for people with younger children at home. What will it mean for the larger fight against COVID to get these shots in the arms of kids? You know, kids are a not insignificant part of the unvaccinated population in this country. And so it means a lot that we are now preparing to vaccinate kids because we know that that will increase our national vaccination numbers. But specifically, if we just look at kids as a population, we also know that the COVID vaccines are critical

to make school a safe place for kids to continue to go so that they don't miss out on learning, like we saw over the last year. And so making sure that the vaccines are available to younger kids is really critical to making sure that kids don't miss the developmental milestones that they need to be meeting in school and in their social lives to make sure all of our kids are thriving and doing well. And I know a lot of parents will be breathing a sigh of relief when their kids are protected. Pediatricians will as well. Dr. Rhea Boyd, one final point on boosters. With tens of millions of adults now eligible for one, does that change the definition of what it means to be fully vaccinated? Yeah, it's a really great question.

Right now, we don't have booster eligibility for all people currently. CDC Director Walensky has said basically the definition of fully vaccinated isn't changing, with only a segment of the population eligible for boosters. But she did suggest that eligible population could grow. It's been reported that the FDA is actively looking at whether a booster should be recommended for people 40 and up. We are following the data in real time, looking at its ongoing efficacy, as well as its potential for waning in our other age groups. And we will update our recommendations as soon as we have more data.

You heard reporting in this episode from our colleagues at NPR's Science Desk, including Ping Huang, Rob Stein, and Selena Simmons-Duffin. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.