Mask mandates are needed in schools as part of a layered approach to prevent the spread of COVID-19, NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, MD, said during a New York Times event on Thursday.
COVID vaccines could become available for some children under the age of 12 as early as this fall, he said, but until that time, a layered approach is the best defense for keeping students safe.
“First and foremost,” Fauci told Times reporter Apoorva Mandavilli, it’s important “to surround children with people who are vaccinated.”
He added that he is in favor of mandating that anyone who is around children in a school be vaccinated.
The statement came as Los Angeles on Thursday was poised to become the largest school district in the U.S. to mandate COVID vaccines for eligible students.
Adequate testing and improved ventilation also contribute to the layered approach, he said. Eating lunch outdoors, when feasible, may cut down on transmission during a time of the day when adults and children take off their masks and may let their guard down.
As for parents who question why it is taking longer for the FDA to greenlight vaccines for younger children, Fauci said that data for the FDA to review will likely be available from Pfizer in late September or early October, and from Moderna in late October or early November.
“If the FDA deems that this is an emergency situation for children — many people believe it is — the EUA [emergency use authorization] could come some few weeks or so following the application to the FDA,” Fauci said.
For parents who may be concerned about having their children receive two doses of the vaccine — let alone three, if a booster were to be recommended for everyone — Fauci told Mandavilli that it’s important for adults to think about the COVID vaccine just as they would the many other vaccines their children normally receive.
“This is really no different,” Fauci said. “If children require a … third boost … I don’t think that’s anything particularly unusual in a vaccine regimen.”
Though children are less likely to get severely ill from COVID than adults, there are currently many pediatric hospitals that have beds filled with kids who have COVID serious enough to require hospitalization, Fauci said.
It’s less likely for completely healthy children to require hospitalization due to COVID, but there are still those without any underlying conditions who end up in the hospital, he said. Additionally, children may face lingering symptoms from COVID, including fatigue, muscle aches, and sleep disturbances.
The risk of a vaccine, Fauci said, is “exceedingly low,” and COVID vaccines work against the highly transmissible Delta variant.
“I worry about a lot of things. One of them is a variant that would be evading our vaccines,” Fauci told Mandavilli. “Fortunately, we haven’t seen that.”
But, Fauci also said that, when there are 75 million people eligible to be vaccinated against COVID who have not yet received the vaccine, it gives the virus “ample opportunity to circulate and replicate.”
Of the possibility that a variant more dangerous for children than adults could emerge, he said: “Anything is possible.”
Last Updated September 10, 2021
Source: MedicalNewsToday.com
