When Will Young Children Be Able To Get The COVID Vaccine?

As the COVID vaccine begins its rollout to the most vulnerable individuals, certain adolescents may have to wait for quite some time before they receive their shots, if they come from Moderna, that is.

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said during the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference on Monday that the pharmaceutical company doesn’t expect clinical trial data for young children from the COVID vaccine to be available until 2022, CNBC reports.

While Moderna has begun testing the COVID vaccine on children as young as 12, Bancel said that it is not expected that the study will be completed until the fall school year starts around September. Another study for children aged 1 to 11 will start soon, but Bancel stated that the study will take “much longer.”

Bancel continued by saying that the study for the vaccine in those aged 1 and 11 will have to be started at a “lower dose.” He warned, “We should not see clinical data in 2021, but more [likely] in 2022.”

Moderna’s COVID vaccine has shown up to 95% efficacy against the virus with consistency across age, race, and gender in late-stage trial testing of adult participants. But the vaccine was only approved for use in people aged 18 and older by the Food and Drug Administration.

In November, Bancel said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that it would be some time before Moderna would begin clinical trials in children. “...for younger children, you have to go down in age very slowly and you have to start at a lower dose to make sure it is safe,” he said at the time.

Even if clinical trials proved safe for children to have the COVID vaccine, they would not be first in line to receive the inoculations. The phased-in approach to receiving the vaccine has place high-risk individuals at the front of the line to receive doses of the drug.

Those that are considered less at risk of severe COVID illness are not expected to get the vaccine until a later phase, including children and young adults.

To date, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that over 8.9 million people have received doses of the COVID vaccine.