CDC panel recommends Pfizer vaccine for children as young as 12

Children as young as 12 should receive the PfizerBioNTech coronavirus vaccine to protect them from COVID-19 and help end the pandemic, a panel of advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended Wednesday.

The recommendation means that many middle school students and virtually all high school students will have the chance to be vaccinated before the start of the next school year.

The vaccine is already available in the United States to everybody 16 and older. Making 12- to 15year-olds eligible is an opportunity to vaccinate another 18 million people.

So far, 118 million people in the United States — or about 35% of the population — have been fully vaccinated. Experts say that figure has to at least double to reach herd immunity, the point at which the virus begins to die out, and that every group counts.

Though young people generally experience milder cases of COVID-19 than other groups, experts believe vaccinating adolescents will help protect their families and the broader community.

Vaccinating as many people as possible quickly also will drive down the likelihood that new variants will emerge.

“The higher the level of immunity in the population, the less spread of virus there will be — and, more importantly, less disease and death,” said Dr. Paul Spearman, the director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

As the vaccine becomes available to more adolescents, a key question will be how many parents will allow it. A survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation suggested that, among parents of 12to 15-year-olds, less than a third planned to have their children vaccinated as soon as possible.

About a quarter of the parents surveyed indicated they wanted to wait until more data became available, and almost as many said they didn’t plan on seeking vaccination for their children at all. Anyone younger than 18 who wants to be vaccinated must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

The CDC recommendation effectively endorsed the Food and Drug Administration’s recent decision to authorize the shot for emergency use in people ages 12 to 15.