Pfizer CEO Albert Burla said tonight (Thursday) at a news conference that he estimates teens will be able to get vaccinated against the corona as early as this fall and that elementary school-age children will be able to get vaccinated towards the end of the year.
In addition, Burla referred to the amount of vaccines his company could distribute and said he believes that by the end of the year, the company will be able to distribute over 2 billion vaccines worldwide. According to him, the final number will range from 2.4-2.3 billion, which is 20% more than the amount expected by the company before the start of the year.
As you may recall, the vaccine produced by Pfizer, which was approved in an emergency procedure by the FDA, was approved for ages 16+ last January. Since then, the company has conducted an experiment involving more than 2,000 children aged 15-12 who received the vaccine and is awaiting the start of FDA discussions to be approved for use on children worldwide.
In Israel, it was reported that the advisory committee to the Ministry of Health is examining whether to recommend vaccinating children aged 15-12, even before the international approval is given. Discussions will not have to wait for results on vaccine efficacy, due to the assessment that Pfizer vaccines are as effective in children as in adults, and it remains only to make sure that the vaccine is not dangerous for them.
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Meanwhile, Professor Hezi Levy, director general of the Ministry of Health, also referred today to the possibility of vaccinating children as early as 2021 and said: “At this stage there are a number of companies conducting experiments on the subject, including Pfizer and Moderna. “I estimate that if the experiments are crowned a success, we can start vaccinating our children at that time.”
According to him, there is currently no thought of abolishing the obligation to wear masks in Israel: “It is not on the table because we do not know enough about asymptomatic infection between vaccinated and unvaccinated and we have at least 2.5 million non-vaccinated children. “Because of illness, they returned the masks. Although in closed places, they returned the obligation to wear masks.”