Vaccine OK'd for people 12-15
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday granted emergency use authorization that will allow young people 12-15 to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
The move marked the first time one of the three major COVID vaccines has been approved for use in people under 16.
The news comes as public health officials have sounded alarms about a decline in the rate of new vaccinations at levels below the number needed to establish so-called “herd immunity.”
Vaccine eligibility in Louisiana was expanded in late March to include people as young as 16.
“The FDA’s expansion of the emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to include adolescents 12 through 15 years of age is a significant step in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D., in a press release Monday.
“Today’s action allows for a younger population to be protected from COVID-19, bringing us closer to returning to a sense of normalcy and to ending the pandemic. Parents and guardians can rest assured that the agency undertook a rigorous and thorough review of all available data, as we have with all of our COVID-19 vaccine emergency use authorizations.”
The most commonly reported side effects in the adolescent clinical trial participants, which typically lasted 1-3 days, were pain at the injection site, tiredness, headache, chills, muscle pain, fever and joint pain. With the exception of pain at the injection site, more adolescents reported these side effects after the second dose than after the first dose, so it is important for vaccination providers and recipients to expect that there may be some side effects after either dose, but even more so after the second dose.
As of Monday, 26.37% of people 18 and older in Louisiana Department of Public Health Region 3, which covers the area from St. Mary and Assumption parishes east to St. John the Baptist, have completed their COVID-19 vaccine series.
In St. Mary, 23.32% of adults have completed their vaccinations, and in Assumption the vaccination rate is 22.91%.
Lower St. Martin is part of Region 4, which is centered in Lafayette Parish. The adult vaccination rate for that region is 24.67%. In St. Martin, the adult vaccination rate is 20.48%.
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