- Carlos Santana forgives man who sexually abused him ‘almost every day’ between ages of 10 and 12 Daily Mail
- Carlos Santana Reveals How He Learned to Forgive the Man Who Sexually Abused Him: ‘Open Your Hands and Let It Go’ (Exclusive) PEOPLE
- Carlos Santana forgives man who sexually abused him ‘almost every day’ from ages 10 to 12 Page Six
- Carlos Santana Reveals How He Was Able to Forgive His Childhood Sexual Abuser TooFab
- Carlos Santana recalls 1969 Woodstock show, being high due to Jerry Garcia: ‘Am I going to be able to play?’ Fox News
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Tag Archives: Ages
FDA authorizes emergency use for Novavax Covid-19 vaccine for ages 12 to 17
A box of the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine arranged at a pharmacy in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, US, on Monday, Aug. 1, 2022.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Biotechnology company Novavax announced on Friday that its Covid-19 vaccine has been authorized for emergency use by the U.S Food and Drug Administration for adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17.
In July, Novavax’s two-dose Covid-19 vaccine for adults ages 18 and over got its emergency approval from the FDA.
Having more vaccine options for adults and children will “hopefully help increase vaccination rates, particularly as we prepare for ongoing surges of Covid-19 with the start of fall and the back-to-school season,” Stanley C. Erck, president and CEO of Novavax, said in a statement.
Novavax was one of the original participants in the U.S. government’s race to develop a Covid vaccine in 2020, receiving $1.8 billion in taxpayer funding from Operation Warp Speed. However, the small Maryland biotech company struggled to quickly get manufacturing in place and its clinical trial data read out much later than rivals Pfizer or Moderna.
Dr. Peter Marks, a senior FDA official, has said that Novavax’s vaccine would potentially appeal to unvaccinated people who would prefer a shot that is not based on the messenger RNA technology used by Pfizer and Moderna.
How Novavax is different
The Novavax shot is based on more conventional protein technology used for decades in hepatitis B and HPV vaccines, while Pfizer and Moderna are the first FDA-approved vaccines to use mRNA.
Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines use mRNA, a molecule encoded with genetic instructions, to tell human cells to produce copies of a virus particle called the spike protein. The immune system responds to these copies of the spike, which prepares the human body to attack the actual virus.
Novavax makes copies of the virus spike outside human cells. The genetic code for the spike is put into an insect virus that infects moth cells, which produce copies that are then purified and extracted during the manufacturing process. The finished spike copies are injected into the human body, inducing an immune response against Covid.
The Novavax vaccine also uses an additional ingredient called an adjuvant, which is extracted and purified from the bark of a tree in South America, to induce a broader immune response. The shots consist of 5 micrograms of the spike copy and 50 micrograms of the adjuvant.
Effectiveness and safety
Two doses of the Novavax vaccine were 90% effective at preventing illness from Covid across the board and 100% effective at preventing severe illness, according to clinical trial data from the U.S. and Mexico. However, the trial was conducted from December 2020 through September 2021, months before the omicron variant became dominant.
Novavax did not present any data on the shot’s effectiveness against the variant at the FDA committee meeting in June. However, the vaccine will likely have lower effectiveness against omicron as is the case with Pfizer and Moderna’s shots. Omicron is so distinct from the original strain of Covid that the antibodies produced by the vaccines have trouble recognizing and attacking the variant.
Novavax published data in December showing that a third shot boosted the immune response to levels comparable to the first two doses which had 90% effectiveness against illness. The company plans to ask the FDA to authorize a third dose of its vaccine.
FDA authorization of Novavax’s vaccines comes as the U.S. is preparing to update Covid shots to target the omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants to increase protection against the virus. Novavax’s vaccine, like all the other shots, is based on the original version of the virus that first emerged in Wuhan, China. The effectiveness of Covid vaccines against mild illness has slipped substantially as the virus has evolved, though they still generally protect against severe disease.
Novavax presented data at an FDA committee meeting in late June demonstrating that a third dose of its vaccine produced a strong immune response against omicron and its subvariants. Committee members were impressed by the company’s data on omicron.
The Novavax vaccine also appears to carry a risk of heart inflammation for younger men, known as myocarditis and pericarditis, similar to Pfizer and Moderna’s shots. Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle and pericarditis is inflammation of the outer lining of the heart.
FDA officials flagged four cases of myocarditis and pericarditis from Novavax’s clinical trial in young men ages 16 to 28. People who develop heart inflammation as a side effect of Covid vaccines are usually hospitalized for several days as a precaution but then recover.
The FDA has issued a fact sheet for health-care providers warning that clinical trial data indicates there is an increased risk of myocarditis with the Novavax vaccine. People who experience chest pain, shortness of breath and feelings of a fluttering or pounding heart should immediately seek medical attention, according to the FDA.
In the case of the mRNA shots, the CDC has found that the risk of myocarditis is higher from Covid infection than vaccination. Myocarditis is usually caused by viral infections.
China mulls using lunar satellites to probe the cosmic dark ages
Chinese scientists want to use the moon to help get an unprecedented look at the early, dark days of our universe.
The team behind the Discovering the Sky at the Longest Wavelengths (DSL) mission, also known as Hongmeng, want to send 10 satellites into orbit around the moon to pick up faint cosmic signals, using our celestial neighbor to block electromagnetic interference from human activity on Earth.
The aim is to gain a glimpse at the so-called cosmic dark ages—a mysterious era before the first stars began to shine—by collecting faint, stretched out, ultra-long wavelength light emitted by hydrogen atoms formed by the Big Bang.
Related: The latest news about China’s space program
Nine daughter satellites will collect faint signals from the deep universe while orbiting on the far side of the moon, where terrestrial interference will be blocked. A mother satellite will then collect the gathered information from the daughter satellites and beam the data back to Earth when on the near side of the moon.
These low-frequency signals from the early cosmos are very difficult or impossible to receive on Earth due to the planet’s ionosphere. The proposal is an innovative alternative to the much more costly and technically challenging route of setting permanent telescopes on the surface of the lunar far side, the South China Morning Post (opens in new tab) reports, citing Wu Ji, a senior Chinese space scientist.
The mission, led by Chen Xuelei of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), is one of a number of proposed astronomy, exploration, Earth science, heliophysics and exoplanet missions competing for approval under the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ New Horizons Program.
DSL could receive official approval in the coming weeks according to the South China Morning Post.
IEEE Spectrum, reporting (opens in new tab) earlier on DSL, notes that the mission was earlier proposed as a joint Sino-European project but was not selected. The new DSL proposal now has a shot at approval through CAS’s New Horizons program.
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Elon Musk Says ‘Haven’t Had Sex In Ages’, Denies Affair With Google Co-Founder’s Wife
Elon Musk denied he had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin
Washington:
Tesla CEO Elon Musk denied a media report that alleged that he had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of billionaire Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
Replying to a link to the story posted on Twitter, Musk described the report as “total bs”.
“This is total bs. Sergey and I are friends and were at a party together last night,” Elon Musk tweeted.
Elon Musk said he has seen Sergey Brin’s wife twice in three years, both times in the presence of other people, and there was “nothing romantic” between them.
“I’ve only seen Nicole twice in three years, both times with many other people around. Nothing romantic,” he added.
Elon Musk followed up his denial with claims that the publication has engaged in “character assassination” numerous times before and alleged that “none of the key people involved in these alleged wrongdoings were even interviewed!”
The report alleged that the affair happened after Elon Musk’s breakup with partner and singer Grimes in September 2021.
While denying all the claims, Elon Musk also said that he hasn’t had sex in the longest time.
“Haven’t even had sex in ages (sigh),” he replied to another tweet.
He also uploaded a photo of himself at a party with Sergey Brin close by, claiming it was taken recently.
Elon Musk is clearly disappointed with the media after reading such allegations about him.
“The amount of attention on me has gone supernova, which super sucks. Unfortunately, even trivial articles about me generate a lot of clicks. Will try my best to be heads down focused on doing useful things for civilization,” he tweeted.
Not only this, a few weeks ago, several reports surfaced online that stated Elon Musk had secretly fathered twins in November 2021 with Shivon Zilis, an executive at Musk’s company Neuralink.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk is currently locked in a legal battle with Twitter after he dropped a bid to purchase the social media company.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
‘Beyond the dark ages’: USU’s Space Dynamics Lab supplies pivotal parts to Webb Telescope
NASA revealed four new images last week taken by the James Webb Telescope. This image shows the Carina Nebula. Without crucial parts engineered by Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Lab, NASA’s James Webb Telescope may never have been able to capture the stunning images that it has so far. (NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI)
Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
LOGAN — Standing within the confines of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Glen Hansen noticed a poster on the wall that intrigued him.
The poster said, “Looking beyond the dark ages.”
“It’s just great to see that the telescope is actually doing that. It’s looked well beyond where we’ve been able to see before, not only in space but in time, as we look back at the early beginnings of the universe,” said Hansen, chief engineer with Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory.
Hansen wasn’t just there as a spectator that day, either. He and his team at the lab we’re actively involved in creating technology for the now famed James Webb Space Telescope.
“To be a part of that, it makes you feel really good,” Hansen said.
Hansen said that the Space Dynamics Lab was working on developing technology for NASA’s SABER mission when they were selected to develop similar technology to support the Webb telescope “based on our heritage with being able to provide these types of straps.”
Without the work done by the Space Dynamics Lab, the Webb telescope may never have been able to capture the stunning images that it has so far.
The lab’s contribution to the telescope was to develop the thermal control system — in particular, heat straps that “conduct the heat away from each of the instruments out to the radiators on the telescope” and support structures for the straps.
Hansen explained that the instruments on the telescope endure extreme cold while in space, all the way down to 4 K, or -452 degrees Fahrenheit.
“The reason why they need to be cold like that is because you’re looking at some very cold objects out in deep space, so if your detectors are warmer than the object that you’re trying to see, you won’t see that,” Hansen said.
He said it’s like trying to stargaze in downtown Salt Lake City as opposed to doing so somewhere high up in the Wasatch Mountains, or deep within a desert in southern Utah.
“If you move out away from the city … you can see a whole myriad of stars out there, and that’s kind of the way it is with the detectors,” Hansen said. “If they’re not colder than the objects they’re trying to see … they get swamped by that infrared heat that the surroundings are radiating.”
So, the thermal control system and the heat straps engineered by the Space Dynamics Lab are essentially what keep the detectors cold, moving the heat that the detectors generate to the radiator to allow a peek into deep space.
Without the thermal control system, the telescope “would never be able to see what they’re trying to detect,” Hansen said.
For Hansen and the rest of the crew at the Space Dynamics Lab, who spent the better part of the last five years working on the technology, seeing the images that come back from the telescope is an extremely gratifying feeling.
“To finally see that it gets out there and then see the images come back, it’s very fulfilling,” Hansen said. “It’s a great sense of accomplishment.”
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With a perfect cast, Broadway has an ‘Into the Woods’ for the ages
They’ve all been encouraged by an inspired director, Lear deBessonet, to bring the bravura. That impulse on other occasions might bend the theatrical arc toward camp. But for the brand of musical comedy that Sondheim and book writer James Lapine were after — a storybook world of out-of-control anxiety — some rib-tickling personal dazzle is absolutely the right way to go.
One after another, the members of the exceptional cast — Sara Bareilles, Phillipa Soo, Gavin Creel, Patina Miller, Brian d’Arcy James, Joshua Henry, and on and on — add funny new twists to fairy-tale characters old and completely new. There’s no one who doesn’t rise to this special occasion, the Broadway transfer of a concert version that originated earlier this year in the long-standing Encores series at City Center, the institution that birthed the 10,000-performance-plus revival of “Chicago.”
If you’ve never been to a production of “Into the Woods,” which premiered on Broadway in 1987, this would be the ideal place to start. If you have, this would be the perfect place to renew the acquaintance. The physical format is basic: an onstage orchestra more than a dozen strong, conducted by Rob Berman, communicating the whimsical texture of Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations; a simple set design by David Rockwell, of platforms in front of and behind the band, and birch trees that descend for the forest quests, and shimmer with Tyler Micoleau’s lighting as a Giant rattles the kingdom; and a cast, wittily costumed by Andrea Hood, delivering Lapine’s lines and Sondheim’s score with verve.
The program lists two sound designers, Scott Lehrer and Alex Neumann, which feels particularly apt, because the clarity with which Sondheim’s lyrics reach our ears is perhaps double the norm. Have you ever experienced what I call audibility fatigue at the theater — the feeling of exhausted defeat that sets in when you lose half the words in musical amplification issues or garbled vocal execution? The opposite occurs in the St. James: Sondheim’s poetry is rousingly conveyed, down to the last syllable of recited rhyme.
“Into the Woods” is one of the best known and most often performed musicals in the Sondheim canon, but it’s a family show only if you want to explain some of life’s complexities to the little ones afterward. Lapine and Sondheim devise a kingdom of wishers: a childless baker (d’Arcy James) and his wife (Bareilles); a brutalized Cinderella (Soo); a penniless homemaker (Aymee Garcia) and her son, Jack, of “Beanstalk” fame (Cole Thompson); a wizened witch (Miller) living under a curse. The writers tie up almost everything in a pretty bow when the wish list is filled by the end of Act 1 — then rip the bow to shreds in Act 2.
No one emerges unscathed. “Wishes may bring problems such that you regret them,” goes the second-act opener, “better that, though, than to never get them.” The story follows our universal passage from childhood to adulthood. We are cast out of the land of make-believe and into a world of tragic consequences. As the kingdom unravels, beset by that vengeful Giant (Annie Golden), characters die, turn on each other, and become more and more confused. Life is a riddle, but not always the amusing kind.
The show’s final sequences have been forced into a curious and not entirely persuasive moral; then again, a muddle of things may in the end be the best we mortals can expect. Still, Lapine and Sondheim create so many embraceable characters, and the score is so lovely, that any concerns about plotting become minor. And that is especially true in a version of “Into the Woods” that fields nothing but champions. Bareilles, for example, is a natural as the Baker’s Wife: The performance is effortlessly warm and funny, an embodiment of the independent-mindedness and humility that characterize the best of us.
Creel, in the traditional double role of Wolf and Cinderella’s Prince, summons his inner ham with a fully baked comic virtuosity; “Agony” and its reprise, both sung with Rapunzel’s Prince, portrayed by a delightfully self-adoring Henry, are the best I’ve ever heard. They belong in an “Into the Woods” Hall of Fame along with Julia Lester, as an uber-confident, rough-and-ready Little Red Riding Hood; Soo, breathing insouciant charm into a mellifluous Cinderella; and Miller, singing “Stay With Me” sweetly and yet sustaining the Witch’s air of menacing authority.
Cinderella’s retinue (Nancy Opel as the Stepmother, plus Brooke Ishibashi, Ta’Nika Gibson, David Turner and Albert Guerzon) is a vivid side show, and David Patrick Kelly is an inspired choice as the Narrator and Mysterious Man. Two outstanding props must also be mentioned: the Giant’s imposing oversize footwear, and more crucially, Milky White as an emotion-racked puppet cow, operated hilariously at my performance by Cameron Johnson. It must be noted that if the Tony Awards were ever to divide acting categories into dairy and nondairy, Milky White would be a moo-in.
The final applause belongs to the composer, who died in November but whose memory infuses every scene. “Sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood. Do not let it grieve you. No one leaves for good,” go the lyrics in “No One Is Alone.” Most certainly, Sondheim has not left for good.
Into the Woods, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine. Directed by Lear deBessonet. Music direction, Rob Berman; choreography, Lorin Latarro; orchestrations, Jonathan Tunick; set, David Rockwell; costumes, Andrea Hood; lighting, Tyler Micoleau; sound, Scott Lehrer and Alex Neumann. About 2 hours 45 minutes. At St. James Theatre, 246 W. 44th St., New York. intothewoodsbway.com.
More US children becoming obese at younger ages – The Hill
Story at a glance
- Compared with levels seen in the early 2000s, recent data show more American children are becoming obese and being diagnosed earlier.
- More children are also being diagnosed with severe obesity upon the start of kindergarten.
- Researchers called for increased public health interventions to meet the crisis.
Increasing obesity rates have been well-documented among U.S. adults. But new research published in Pediatrics details to what extent the epidemic is impacting American children.
According to data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies, more American children are becoming obese and being diagnosed earlier, with more severe diagnoses recorded than in previous years. The United States also has the highest prevalence of childhood obesity in the world.
Researchers assessed trends among kindergarteners starting school in 1998 compared to 2010. Obesity was defined as having a body mass index above the 95th percentile, and definitions were tailored to different age groups. Children were followed throughout fifth grade until 2004 and 2016, respectively. Because the data are nationally representative, findings can be generalized to the wider pediatric population.
Despite numerous public health campaigns designed to improve healthy eating and address environmental issues, children in the later cohort experienced higher rates of obesity at younger ages, while non-Hispanic Black children had a 29 percent higher incidence of obesity by fifth grade compared with 12 years prior.
Analyses also showed that throughout this window, the risk of underserved and economically disadvantaged children developing obesity rose by 15 percent.
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Currently, around 40 percent of high school students can be classified as having had obesity or being overweight in their primary school years.
Severe obesity was defined as having a body mass index of greater than or equal to 120 percent of the 95th percentile. In 2010, 3.9 percent of children entered kindergarten with severe obesity compared with 2.9 percent seen in 1998.
“These worrying data indicate that the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States continues to grow and get more serious. Our knowledge about effective interventions to fight this also seems limited,” said study author K.M. Venkat Narayan in a statement.
“We urgently need an aggressive national strategy for interdisciplinary research and public health to stem the tide of childhood obesity and its consequences in the US and worldwide.”
Childhood obesity can lead to a host of mental and physical health problems, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Authors stress the data underscore the need for more comprehensive programs aimed at reducing obesity in children.
“For decades, we have seen the number of children with obesity increasing, in spite of extensive efforts from many parents and policy makers to improve children’s nutrition, physical activity and living environments,” said co-author Solveig A. Cunningham.
“Have these efforts worked? Is obesity finally receding?” Cunningham added. “Our findings indicate that no, obesity must continue to be a public health priority.”
Published on Jul. 08, 2022
How many ice ages has the Earth had, and could humans live through one?
Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.
How many ice ages has the Earth had, and could humans live through one? – Mason C., age 8, Hobbs, New Mexico
First, what is an ice age? It’s when the Earth has cold temperatures for a long time – millions to tens of millions of years – that lead to ice sheets and glaciers covering large areas of its surface.
We know that the Earth has had at least five major ice ages. The first one happened about 2 billion years ago and lasted about 300 million years. The most recent one started about 2.6 million years ago, and in fact, we are still technically in it.
So why isn’t the Earth covered in ice right now? It’s because we are in a period known as an “interglacial.” In an ice age, temperatures will fluctuate between colder and warmer levels. Ice sheets and glaciers melt during warmer phases, which are called interglacials, and expand during colder phases, which are called glacials.
Right now we are in the most recent ice age’s warm interglacial period, which began about 11,000 years ago.
What was it like during the ice age?
When most people talk about the “ice age,” they are usually referring to the last glacial period, which began about 115,000 years ago and ended about 11,000 years ago with the start of the current interglacial period.
During that time, the planet was much cooler than it is now. At its peak, when ice sheets covered most of North America, the average global temperature was about 46 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius). That’s 11 degrees F (6 degrees C) cooler than the global annual average today.
That difference might not sound like a lot, but it resulted in most of North America and Eurasia being covered in ice sheets. Earth was also much drier, and sea level was much lower, since most of the Earth’s water was trapped in the ice sheets. Steppes, or dry grassy plains, were common. So were savannas, or warmer grassy plains, and deserts.
Many animals present during the ice age would be familiar to you, including brown bears, caribou and wolves. But there were also megafauna that went extinct at the end of the ice age, like mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats and giant ground sloths.
There are different ideas about why these animals went extinct. One is that humans hunted them into extinction when they came in contact with the megafauna.
James St. John/Flickr, CC BY
Wait, there were humans during the ice age?!
Yes, people just like us lived through the ice age. Since our species, Homo sapiens, emerged about 300,000 years ago in Africa, we have spread around the world.
During the ice age, some populations remained in Africa and did not experience the full effects of the cold. Others moved into other parts of the world, including the cold, glacial environments of Europe.
And they weren’t alone. At the beginning of the ice age, there were other species of hominins – a group that includes our immediate ancestors and our closest relatives – throughout Eurasia, like the Neanderthals in Europe and the mysterious Denisovans in Asia. Both of these groups seem to have gone extinct before the end of the ice age.
There are lots of ideas about how our species survived the ice age when our hominin cousins did not. Some think that it has to do with how adaptable we are, and how we used our social and communication skills and tools. And it appears that humans didn’t hunker down during the ice age. Instead they moved into new areas.
For a long time it was thought that humans did not enter North America until after the ice sheets started to melt. But fossilized footprints found at White Sands National Park in New Mexico show that humans have been in North America since at least 23,000 years ago – close to the peak of the last ice age.
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
CDC director signs off on Moderna Covid-19 vaccine for people ages 6 through 17
The recommendation comes after the CDC’s vaccine advisers, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, voted unanimously on Thursday to support recommending the two-dose Moderna Covid-19 vaccine for use in people ages 6 through 17. The vaccine received emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration last week.
“It is critical that we protect our children and teens from the complications of severe COVID-19 disease,” Walensky said in a statement on Friday. “Today, we have expanded the options available to families by recommending a second safe and effective vaccine for children ages 6 through 17 years. Vaccinating this age group can provide greater confidence to families that their children and adolescents participating in childcare, school, and other activities will have less risk for serious COVID-19 illness.”
The CDC’s advisers endorsed the vaccine after hearing details about Moderna’s application to the FDA and the latest safety data.
“There is a risk of myocarditis/pericarditis after both messenger RNA Covid-19 vaccines, most cases have prompt improvement in symptoms. A follow up survey suggests most fully recovered from myocarditis,” said Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot, an associate professor of medicine from Vanderbilt University during ACIP’s discussion of the vaccine Thursday. She added that myocarditis after vaccination has been generally mild compared to those who developed myocarditis after getting sick from Covid-19.
The CDC said that the risk of myocarditis “may be higher” with the Moderna vaccine than from vaccination from Pfizer, but there are limitations to what scientists know about the condition in this age group since the data is observational and limited.
Overall, the data presented from the company showed that most children got the vaccine without incident.
“In general, most adverse events reported after Covid vaccines are mild and transient events like injection site and systemic reactions,” said Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, the Deputy Director of the H1N1 Vaccine Task Force at the CDC. “We will continue to monitor the safety of these vaccines and we will continue to work with partners, both within the federal government and with health care providers and provider organizations to better understand these types of adverse events.”
During the pandemic over 5.1 million Covid-19 cases have occurred among children ages 5 through 11 according to a presentation at the meeting from the CDC’s Dr. Sara Oliver.
In April unvaccinated children between the ages of 5 to 17 overall had a two times greater risk of testing positive for Covid-19 than unvaccinated children with the primary series of the vaccine.
There’s also been an increase in hospitalizations among this age group, particularly during the Omicron surge. Among adolescents ages 12 to 17, the cumulative rates of Covid-19 hospitalizations are “considerably higher” than for flu during all prior flu seasons, Oliver, a member of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service told the committee. The possibility that children could develop long Covid, even if they had a mild or asymptomatic Covid case, is also a significant concern.
Children are the least vaccinated group among all the age groups in the US. About 65% of children in the 5 through 11 age group and 30% of adolescents have not been vaccinated, the CDC said. The CDC hopes more parents will protect their children with a vaccination.
“We can predict with future Covid-19 surges, the unvaccinated will continue to bear the burden of disease,” said Oliver.
Vaccine details
For children ages 6 through 11, the Moderna vaccine is administered as a two-dose series at 50 micrograms per dose.
Adolescents ages 12 through 17 receive the same amount that is administered in adults — a two-dose series at 100 micrograms per dose.
Moderna’s vaccine is already available for people ages 6 months through 5 years and 18 and older.
People ages 6 to 17 were already eligible to be vaccinated with the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
“There are 25 million unvaccinated children and adolescents right now. We know that the benefits outweigh the risks for mRNA Covid-19 vaccine in all ages,” Oliver said. “Receipt of this primary series continues to be the safest way to prevent serious Covid-19.”
Moderna boosters
The CDC did not take up a booster dose issue for the Moderna vaccine, since it is not authorized by the FDA yet, but Dr. Doran Fink, the deputy director of the clinical division of vaccines and related products applications of the FDA said they would address this gap during the summer.
“We would expect to be addressing this gap in booster doses over the summer,” Fink told the committee.
The agency is collecting more data to determine if a booster dose is necessary.
Some children and adolescents, depending on their age, who have received the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine are eligible for a booster dose.
Addressing confusing labels
The CDC promised its independent vaccine adviser committee that it would create multiple fact sheets and more education opportunities for vaccine administrators due to what it called a “confusing label situation” with Moderna’s vaccine vials.
To distinguish between vials, Moderna has used different color caps and has used a different color border around the label. For the six months through 5 years age group that gets a smaller 25 microgram dose, for example, the cap is dark blue and the border is magenta. For children ages 6 through 11, who will get a bigger dosage size at 50 micrograms, the vial has a dark blue cap as well, but the border is purple. The same vial is used for booster doses for adults 18 years of age and older. The label on that product also says it can be used for booster doses.
“We recognize that that label for ages 6 through 11 stating ‘BOOSTER DOSES’ in all caps is very confusing,” the CDC’s Dr. Elisha Hall, the clinical guidelines lead for the Covid-19 emergency response told the committee Thursday. “There will be multiple education and communication materials and efforts to communicate the authorized use of this vial for ages 6 through 11.”
She said the CDC will also offer educational webinars to help providers.
“With all of these new products out, there may be more opportunities for vaccine administration errors. Besides just the number of products, of course, the products that are not labeled for the indicated age group. Additionally, new pediatric providers may be unfamiliar with Covid-19 vaccines and there are some stark differences between routine vaccines,” Hall said.
Several vaccine advisory committee members urged Moderna and Pfizer to simplify the Covid-19 vaccine vial design. They also expressed concern that vaccine administrators who are color blind will not be able to distinguish between the vials.
“I really appreciate the CDC putting together the types of training and support when we need to implement it, but just recognize that this does impact acceptability from a provider standpoint, because it’s a lot of complexity to incorporate into the busy practice,” said ACIP Chair Dr. Grace Lee, the associate chief medical officer for practice innovation at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. “To me, this is quite overwhelming and I feel like I know Covid pretty well.”
Moderna told the committee that they are “actively working” on the design issue.
Long-Covid can affect children of all ages, including infants, study shows
The study published Wednesday in the journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health included 44,000 children in Denmark ranging in ages zero through 14 years old. Of the children, 11,000 had tested positive for Covid-19 between January 2020 and July 2021.
While symptoms associated with long Covid are general ailments children can experience even without Covid — headaches, mood swings, stomach problems and tiredness — the children in the study who had previously tested positive for Covid were more likely to experience at least one symptom for two months or more than the children who never tested positive for Covid.
The study also revealed that a third of children who had tested positive for Covid experienced at least one long-term symptom that was not present before testing positive.
The most common symptoms varied by age. For children up through age 3, it was mood swings, rashes and stomach aches. Children 4 to 11 years old also experienced memory and concentration problems. For the 12- to 14-year-olds, it was memory and concentration issues, mood swings and fatigue.
Children 3 and under seemed to have the most problems compared with those children not diagnosed with Covid-19 — 40% experienced symptoms two months after testing positive compared with the 27% in the group that did not have Covid.
“Our findings align with previous studies of long Covid and adolescents showing that although the chances of children experiencing long Covid is low especially compared to group to the control group, it must be recognized and treated seriously,” said study co-author Selina Kikkenborg Berg, a professor of cardiology at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmark.
It is still unclear how many kids have long Covid and for how long, because there is not enough research on it in this age group, some experts say.
A 2021 study suggested more than half of children between age 6 and 16 had at least one symptom that lasted more than four months.
In adults, some research puts the number around 30% of cases.
There are no specific tests for long Covid. It’s not clear which children will have it, as it can happen even when a child has a mild case of Covid-19.
In addition to showing scientists the characteristics of long Covid in children, the study also showed that even the children who did not get Covid felt the impact of the pandemic. That group reported a few more psychological and social problems than children who had Covid.
Dr. Michael Absoud, a pediatrician who specializes in neurodevelopmental issues who did not work on the study, told the Science Media Center in the UK that he found that fact intriguing.
“The most striking finding of this study is the higher quality of life and lower anxiety scores in older children who had tested positive for Covid-19. This provides further confirmation, that although mercifully children are resilient to the direct impacts of Covid, they have been significantly impacted by the indirect impacts of the pandemic (school closures, repeated quarantines, and reduced therapies) and anxiety inducing media messaging. It is likely that society has under-estimated longer term impact of the pandemic disruption rather than the virus on all children, and the urgent need for recovery of health and wellbeing services,” Absoud said.
“Nonetheless it is still important to identify the small proportion of children who are taking longer to recover from COVID, whilst supporting all children with persistent symptoms regardless of cause,” he added.
Dr. Amy Edwards, a pediatric infectious disease specialist who manages the long Covid clinic at UH Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, did not work on the study, but said the work was important because it is more proof that some children develop long Covid.
She said she still regularly encounters people who do not believe that there is such a thing.
“There is a debate going on in both the medical world and in society, about whether all these kids are complaining about headaches and anxiety and stomachs, aches, and dizziness as to whether this is Covid or the stress of the pandemic. Yes, the pandemic did affect children in a negative way, but then you layer on Covid on top of that, and you see that there is something really going on here,” Edwards said.
Acknowledging long Covid can be a problem may encourage more parents to vaccinate their children so they don’t get long Covid in the first place. Studies like this may also encourage parents to be on the look out for symptoms, so they can get the child help if they need it.
“It’s become clear that this isn’t an isolated phenomenon. It’s showing up in studies in more than one country. It’s happening in more kids than maybe we originally thought,” Edwards said. “We’re talking about not small numbers of children when you think of how many Covid cases there have been. So just continuing to get the word out there matters.”