4 answers about the COVID vaccine for kids from 5 to 11

Some 28 million Americans still aren’t eligible for coronavirus vaccines—elementary school-aged kids between the ages of 5 and 11—but Biden administration officials announced that’s poised to change soon.

The White House announced that it’s expected the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will soon approve and recommend a scaled-down version of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for pediatric use.

Rather than rely on the mass inoculation sites that got shots into the arms of adults and kids aged 12 and up, officials say the rollout plan for vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds will take place in 25,000 pediatric or primary care offices across the United States.

The FDA met this week to discuss an emergency authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds, opening the door for an FDA ruling and CDC recommendation to be in place by early November. With the school year well underway, and holiday travel just around the corner, the rollout of pediatric doses could come just in the nick of time to stave off more infections this winter.

Here, Sabrina Assoumou, an infectious disease specialist and assistant professor of medicine at Boston University, talks about the scaled-down vaccine for kids and how it will affect the overall dynamics of the ongoing pandemic:

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