Dr. Fauci says high school students can be vaccinated by autumn

High school students can receive a coronavirus vaccine in the next semester and elementary students in the first quarter of next year, Dr. Anthony Fauci projected on Sunday, citing ongoing tests on the vaccines’ ability to protect children with safety.

“Maybe not on the first day,” said Fauci of CBS ‘high school student vaccine eligibility on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program, “but certainly in the early part of autumn for that educational semester”

Currently, the Johnson & Johnson and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines are approved for those aged 18 and over, while the Pfizer vaccine is released for those aged 16 and over.

Pfizer and Moderna have completed enrollment for vaccine studies in children 12 years and older, with the results of those studies potentially released this summer. Both companies hope to start studies with children 11 and under this year, the Associated Press reported.

At the same time, Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease specialist, asked Americans not to let their guard down and continue to practice social detachment and wear masks, because daily cases are likely to increase again before we reach collective immunity.

The new daily case counts reached 60,000 to 70,000 cases after several weeks of decline, he said. History shows that when the case count stabilizes at high levels, they don’t start to drop afterwards – they go up. Europe’s current conditions are also an indicator that a potential increase in cases is on America’s horizon, he said.

“They are usually a few weeks ahead of us in these standards,” said Fauci of COVID-19 counts in European countries. “They were also decreasing, then stabilized and, in the last week, they had an increase of about 9% in cases”.

Fauci insisted: “We are going in the right direction. We just need to take it a little longer. “