Dr. Anthony Fauci said babies and toddlers will get their COVID-19 vaccine shots in the near future.
Fauci said that babies and toddlers — basically anyone under 5 years old — will likely have a COVID-19 vaccine made available to them by spring 2022, Business Insider reports.
- “Hopefully within a reasonably short period of time, likely the beginning of next year in 2022, in the first quarter of 2022, it will be available to them,” Fauci told Insider
However, Fauci said it’s unlikely to know when the vaccine will arrive.
- “Can’t guarantee it, you’ve got to do the clinical trial,” he said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said pregnant women can get the COVID-19 vaccine, saying it won’t lead to birthing issues or negative side effects in children.
- Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at the Reuters Total Health conference that more vaccine shots for more people will help control the spread of the coronavirus, per The Guardian.
- More than two shots may become the new standard for adults, said Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser, at the 2021 STAT Summit, according to ABC News. As the winter leads to more cases, more shots may be required to keep immunity fresh.
Dr. Anand Swaminathan, a New Jersey-based emergency medicine physician, recently told Yahoo! Finance that getting boosters is only one aspect of it all. It’s important for more people to get the traditional vaccine doses.
- “Honestly, I think that boosters right now are a bit of a distraction away from where we should be focused, which is getting first doses, especially since we know that even now, even with Delta surging, the primary doses of the vaccines are highly protective against serious infection, against hospitalization,” Swaminathan said.