(WXYZ) — The next issue on the table for the FDA advisory committee is the COVID-19 vaccine for children, which they are set to examine the data on next week.
In tonight's 7 UpFront segment we're talking with the Chief Medical Officer at DMC Children's Hospital Dr. Rudolph Valentini about how we can protect our kids from coronavirus and other illnesses as we head into the colder months.
You can see the full interview in the video player above.
On COVID-19 vaccine approval for kids 5 to 11:
"I think the meeting is October 26th So, usually, the FDA has their meeting, they make their recommendations, the CDC usually follows, and within a few days, usually, we're ready to go. So I would say probably by the 1st of November we should be ready to go and that's very exciting. The 5 to 11 is basically 7 years of children and that's probably about 25 to 28 million children that are now going to be eligible for that vaccine," Dr. Valentini says. "It's a great thing. We're going to be able to protect the 5 to 11-year-olds, they're going to be able to protect their younger siblings, they're going to be able to protect their loved ones at home, maybe grandpa, or maybe their teacher or their coach, so these are all good things for the kids to do, and they absolutely should do it. It looks like it's very efficacious, the control group was a 16 to 25-year-old that got the adult Pfizer dose and it's being compared to a 1/3rd dose, 10 micrograms versus 30, and they actually had these neutralizing antibody titers, they were every bit as high as they were seeing in the adults that got the 30 microgram dose. So, it looks like it's going to be very effective and this is the best way to keep our kids safe and try to take COVID out of our environment."
