Dr. Fauci says children younger than four will get three doses of COVID-19 vaccines once approved

On Wednesday, White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said that the coronavirus vaccine regimen for children under the age of 4 will most likely include three doses when it is approved. Fauci added a promise to make available millions more scarce Pfizer anti-viral pills in the upcoming months. 

Currently, two clinical trials of the Pfizer vaccine on young children ages 6 months to 2 years as well as ages 2 to 4 are ongoing. So far, according to Dr. Fauci, the older group has not yet met standards.

“Dose and regimen for children 6 months to 24 months worked well, but it turned out the other group from 24 months to 4 years did not yet reach the level of non-inferiority, so the studies are continued,” the top doctor noted, making reference to the effectiveness standard in comparison to adults. 

“It looks like it will be a three-dose regimen. I don’t think we can predict when we will see it [approved],” he added, noting that he cannot speak on behalf of the Food and Drug Administration.

“We need to be patient. That’s why the system works. The FDA is very scrupulous in their ability and in their effort to make sure that, before something gets approved for any age, and especially with children…that they will be safe, and that they will be effective.” 

As more reports have come in that the Pfizer antiviral pills have been difficult to find in recent weeks, White House officials have promised to release millions more of those doses by June.

“We’ve purchased 20 million treatment courses of the Pfizer pill and we accelerated delivery of the first 10 million from September to the end of June,” said Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator.

“We have hundreds of thousands of pills across the first quarter of 2022 per month, and that moves to millions in order to complete the first half of the 20 million by the end of June.”