Dr. Scott Gottlieb explained on Monday how he is trying to keep his three daughters protected from the coronavirus, while still allowing them to visit friends before their age groups can be vaccinated against Covid-19.
Gottlieb detailed his approach in the “Squawk Box” after co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin asked the former FDA chief what he thought about indoor play for children, if his parents were fully vaccinated.
“I am reintroducing activities with my children, but I am doing this, I hope, in a prudent way, where I am still keeping the social network a little defined. I’m being careful how many people they are interacting with and who they are interacting with, “said Gottlieb, who led the Food and Drug Administration in the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019. He is now on the board of Pfizer, which makes one of three vaccines Covid approved for emergency use at the US
“For example, many of his encounters were with children who were in his class,” said Gottlieb. “Why? Because this is their social pod. They are already exposed to this social pod, so we try to keep interactions within that defined pod.”
None of the vaccines used in the United States have been authorized for children yet.
The Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine and Moderna’s two-dose vaccine have received limited release for people aged 18 and over. In contrast, the FDA allowed Pfizer’s double vaccine to be given to people aged 16 and over.
All three drug manufacturers are testing the vaccine on children, although clinical trials are in several stages and look at different age groups.
Pfizer said on Wednesday that its vaccine was 100% effective on teenagers aged 12 to 15, and Gottlieb told CNBC that he hopes it can be released for emergency use by the FDA for this group of children by the fall, when the classes are resumed.
Experts say vaccinating children is necessary for the U.S. to achieve so-called herd immunity, which is the point at which enough people in a population have antibodies to fight the virus from previous vaccines or infections and therefore reduce drastically spread.
“Children are clearly less vulnerable to infection, but less vulnerable does not mean that they are not vulnerable and we see some children becoming ill with the coronavirus,” said Gottlieb.
At the present time, as more adults are being vaccinated and feeling comfortable to resume the activities they avoided at the beginning of the pandemic – such as traveling, dining at home and seeing friends and family – some are wondering how they should face the risk for your children.
“Parents being vaccinated reduce the risk of children getting the infection … because many of the infections that we see in contact tracking are actually children who were infected by their parents, not children who were infected at school,” Gottlieb said. “If you are interacting with families where adults have been vaccinated, children are less likely to have the infection.”
However, Gottlieb stressed that even Americans who have been vaccinated must remain aware that the pandemic, which has lasted for more than a year, is not yet over. For example, he said, a person who received an injection from Covid must still wear a mask around an at-risk individual who has not been vaccinated.
“Vaccinated people may feel that they are much less likely to become seriously ill,” he said. “They are less likely to catch the infection and less likely to transmit the evidence. … But if you are around vulnerable people, there is still the possibility, even if you are vaccinated, of being asymptotic and spreading the virus and transmitting the virus. virus to that vulnerable person. “
– CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and a board member of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus, health technology company Aetion Inc. and biotechnology company Illumina. He also serves as co-president of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings‘ and Royal Caribbeanof the “Healthy Candle Panel”.