COLUMBUS, Ohio — New information is out on the safety of a COVID-19 vaccine for teens
Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, announced its vaccine is safe and very effective for children between the ages of 12 and 15.
"This is great news, I mean it's news we're all waiting for to understand the efficacy of these vaccines in a really important population here in the U.S.," said Dr. Iahn Gonsenhauser, Chief Quality and Patient Safety Officer at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
Dr. Gonsenhauser said Pfizer and BioNTech's study of the COVID vaccine on children ages 12 to 15 was considered a small study, with more than 2,200 participants. However, it reveals the vaccine is 100% effective at preventing infection in that age group.
The term “efficacy” and what it means depends on the details of the study. Other COVID-19 vaccines are said to be 100% effective at preventing hospitalization and death.
Dr. Gonsenhauser explained in Pfizer’s study, the efficacy means it prevented the group that received the vaccine from contracting the infection.
“Meaning, it prevented them from even getting COVID in the first place so that's a little bit different…from some of the other definitions that we've seen," he said.
Any information we learn now about the safety of the COVID vaccine for younger age groups opens up the conversation about requiring the vaccine for school-aged kids. And Dr. Joe Gastaldo, an infectious disease expert at OhioHealth, said that’s a conversation that’s already happening in some places.
"It could be that when we get back to the new school year in the fall of 2021 that age category would be eligible to receive vaccines," he said. "Rutgers University has already announced a few days ago that for students coming back in the fall they are requiring vaccination for people who attend.”
So is now the time for schools to start having those conversations?
Dr. Gonsenhauser said he doesn’t think it’s too early at all.
"We have every sort of reason to assume that COVID's going to be with us for the foreseeable future,” he said. “So how do we normalize this? Vaccines and vaccine requirements are one of the ways that we do that."
Pfizer and BioNtech will seek FDA approval for the 12-15 age group soon, and will also begin studies of even younger age groups.