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10% of kids 5-11 get COVID-19 vaccine dose, Moderna asks for adult booster emergency use authorization


At a White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing Wednesday, coordinator Jeff Zients said 10% of kids aged 5-11 who are eligible for the vaccine have gotten at least one dose. That covers at least 2.6 million kids. The video above shows clips from the briefing. 1.7 million COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered in the last week alone. That’s about double the pace of the first week after approval. Meanwhile, locations where kids aged 5-11 can get a COVID-19 vaccine dose increased 50%, from 20,000 across the country to 30,000.

“There are plenty of children, adolescents and otherwise who clearly get infected, get symptomatic disease, and some even go onto long COVID,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said in the briefing. “So there’s a really good reason to optimally protect younger individuals.”

Zients went on to say the administration expects the pace of pediatric shots to pick up in the coming days. Also on Wednesday, first lady Jill Biden held an event promoting kid vaccination with the singer Ciara.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration took steps to make billions of dollars available to drugmakers to scale up domestic production of the COVID-19 vaccine. Those extra doses would be shared with the world, in order to address the massive disparity in vaccine availability between wealthier and poorer countries.

According to an analysis by an international aid and advocacy organization, wealthy nations have administered more than 173 million booster shots. Meanwhile, lower-income countries have only administered about 32 million first doses. That covers just 4.7% of people living in those low-income countries.

“The goal of this program is to expand existing capacity by an additional billion doses per year, with production starting by the second half of 2022,” Zients said Wednesday. The Biden administration hopes the enhanced manufacturing capacity, through support for the company’s facilities, equipment, staff or training, will by mid-2022 allow more COVID-19 doses to be shared overseas as well as help prepare for the next public health emergency.

Under the new initiative, the Department of Health and Humans Services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority is asking pharmaceutical companies who can make mRNA vaccines to bid for an investment in scaling up their manufacturing. There are no firm agreements yet with Moderna or Pfizer,  the two companies behind America’s mRNA vaccines, to accept the investment.

These developments came on the same day Moderna announced it has filed for Emergency Use Authorization of its booster shot for all adults. Currently, the Moderna booster is only approved for seniors, adults who live in long term care facility, adults with underlying medical conditions, and adults who work or live in high-risk settings.

Moderna’s filing comes a week after Pfizer applied for a similar clearance for their booster shot. An FDA decision on that is expected this week, ahead of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel meeting on Friday.

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Jeffrey Zients, White House COVID-19 coordinator: “We estimate by the end of the day today, 2.6 million kids ages five to 11 will have gotten their first shot. 2.6 million, that’s about 10 percent of kids. So, just 10 days into our program being at full strength, we’re at 10 percent of kids. For perspective, it took about 50 days for us to reach 10 percent of adults with one shot. And when the polio vaccine was first rolled out for kids in the 1950s, it took about three months to cross two and a half million shots in arms. And in fact, the pace of vaccinations for kids has been accelerating. In the last week, 1.7 million kids got vaccinated – double the prior week.”

“Operationally, we continue to make strong progress with the kids’ vaccination programs. Vaccines for kids are now available at more than 30,000 trusted and convenient locations. That’s up from 20,000 last week. That means just 10 days in, we have one vaccine site for every 900 kids. That compares to one vaccine site for every 3,500 Americans aged 12 and older. So, in addition to being safe, effective and free, vaccines for kids are readily available and convenient.”

“From the start, President Biden has been clear that the only way to defeat COVID is to defeat the virus here at home and around the world. That’s why we’ve committed to donating 1.2 billion doses to the world. For every one shot we’ve administered here in the United States, we’re donating about three doses to people around the world. Today, we will hit a major milestone in our effort to deliver on this commitment. 250 million doses delivered to 110 countries. A quarter of a billion doses donated and delivered around the world, for free with no strings attached. This is a remarkable achievement. More doses delivered by the United States than every other country in the world combined.”

“Today, we’re taking another major step to bolster vaccine manufacturing, both for this pandemic and to prepare for any future threats. HHS is soliciting interest from companies that have experienced manufacturing mRNA vaccines to identify opportunities to scale up their production capacity. Importantly, initial production could provide more mRNA COVID vaccines for the world. The goal of this program is to expand existing capacity by an additional billion doses per year, with production starting by the second half of 2022. This program would also help us produce doses within six to nine months of identification of a future pathogen and ensure enough vaccines for all Americans.”

“Well, we do want to create the capability to have a billion doses of mRNA vaccine produced, that’s incremental capacity to what we have today, where the first application is likely to be used to produce more COVID-19 vaccines for the world. And then we have this ability for any future threat to produce mRNA vaccines to counter that threat.”