High school students in the United States should be able to receive COVID-19 vaccines by fall, and younger students are likely to be released for vaccines in early 2022, the top U.S. infectious disease officer said on Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“We project that high school students will most likely be vaccinated by the fall, perhaps not on the first day, but certainly in the early fall,” Fauci told CBS.
He said that elementary school children are likely to be ready to receive vaccines in the first quarter of next year, after safety studies are completed.
Currently, the vaccines of Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are approved only for people over 18, while the injection of Pfizer is released for young people from 16 years old.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said high school students may be eligible for vaccines before the fall, with younger students likely to be released for vaccination in early 2022
A student in Alexandria, Virginia, looks at a tablet next to classmates at a table surrounded by plastic sheeting during a day of hybrid in-person learning.
As new studies are conducted, it is hoped that vaccines can be released for younger children, if they prove to be safe and effective for children.
In most states, decisions about whether or not schools should be opened are being made at the local level. Iowa, Arkansas, Texas and Florida have ordered all of their schools to remain open, and West Virginia requires primary schools to have classes.
Fauci also said he hoped the CDC would issue relaxed guidelines to people who have already been vaccinated in the ‘next few days’, but called for continued vigilance over mitigation measures for more than 80 percent of Americans who are still waiting for injections.
‘We are going in the right direction. We just need to take it a little longer, ‘said Fauci.
‘We want the levels of mortality from the virus to be very, very low, and then we will have much, much easier to safely remove’ the mitigation measures.
The United States is now vaccinating an average of 2.1 million people a day – but the gains made against the virus last month were showing signs of waning.
Across the country, the United States reported a 3 percent decline in new cases of COVID-19 last week, a much smaller drop than in the previous six weeks.
New cases dropped by up to 25 percent in the week ending February 7 and 23 percent in the week ending February 21, before stagnating last week, according to an analysis by Reuters.
The decline in cases started to stabilize at 60,000 to 70,000 new infections per day, which Fauci said was not acceptable.
He pointed to the need to continue to mask mandates and other mitigation measures to prevent a resurgence as new variants emerge.
A new variant was spreading in the New York City area and was proving to be “quite vigorous” in its ability to spread and somewhat eluded the protection offered by monoclonal antibodies and vaccines, he said.
Signs calling for Los Angeles schools to reopen are displayed by people passing by vehicles during an “Open Schools Now” rally via caravan last month
A student raises his hand to ask a question in Alexandria, Virginia, on March 2
“One of the things I think we should point out, with each passing day that we keep control over things, is going to get better and better, because now we are putting at least two million vaccines in the arms of individuals each day,” he said.
‘And as the days and weeks pass, you have more and more protection, not just from individuals, but from the community. So we are going in the right direction. We just need to take it a little longer.
Fauci said the vaccine supply would be “dramatically increased” in the coming weeks, as production increased.
The United States administered 90,351,750 doses of COVID-19 vaccines on Sunday morning and distributed 116,363,405 doses, the CDC said.
The agency said 58,873,710 people received one or more doses, while 30,686,881 people received the second dose on Sunday.
A total of 7,389,102 doses of vaccine were administered in long-term care facilities, the agency said.