The Pfizer Shot Is Much Less Effective In 5 To 11 Year-Olds

Nikki Attkisson | Last Updated : March 2, 2022

The covid vaccination that Pfizer-BioNTech makes is less effective for the prevention of infection among children who are more than 5 to 11 years old. In the study conducted by the end of the health officials in New York State, results for the reports have been taken. The reports were taken according to the data collected from the end of the children and their parents. 

The Pfizer Shot Is Much Less Effective In 5 To 11 Year-Olds

According to the study that was taken place in the United States, the Pfizer vaccine is the only Covid shot approved for that age group. The data collected during the Omicron weaves suggest that it still prevents severe illness in children but that it provides practically no protection against infection even a month after full immunization.

The Pfizer Shot Is Much Less Effective In 5 To 11 Year-Olds

According to researchers and federal officials who have reviewed the data, the sharp drop in the vaccine’s performance in young children may be due to the fact that they obtain only one-third of the whole dose that is given to older children and adults.

The findings, which were published online on Monday, follow clinical trial results showing that the vaccine will not be able to get complete protection to the children aged 2 to 4 years old who were given a lower dose.

Experts were concerned that the news would make hesitant parents even more hesitant to immunize their children. Other research has found that the vaccine isn’t very effective against infection with the Omicron variant in adults.

According to Eli Rosenberg, It’s disappointing, but not entirely unexpected, given that this vaccine was developed in response to a previous variant. , the study’s lead author and deputy director for scientific knowledge at the New York State Department of Health. This rapid decline appears distressing, but it’s again all against Omicron.

Despite this, he and other public health professionals said they still recommend the vaccine for children because of its protection against severe disease, which was demonstrated even in the new data set.

Dr. Kathryn M. Edwards, who is the pediatric vaccine expert at Vanderbilt University, said that they need to make sure that they emphasize the doughnut and not the hole. Dr. Rosenberg and his colleagues looked at data from 852,384 newly vaccinated children aged 12 to 17 years and 365,502 children aged 5 to 11 years between December 13, 2021, and January 31, 2022, when the Omicron surge was at its peak.

In older children, the vaccine’s effectiveness against hospitalization dropped to 73 percent from 85 percent. The program’s effectiveness in younger children dropped from 100% to 48%. However, due to the not huge number of children admitted to hospitals, these estimates have large margins of error.

The figures for infection protection are more accurate. Vaccine effectiveness against infection in older children dropped to 51% from 66% previously. However, it dropped dramatically among younger children, from 68 percent to only 12 percent.

Between the ages of 11 and 12, the numbers change dramatically. The vaccine’s efficiency against the infectious disease was 67 percent in 12-year-olds but only 11 percent in 11-year-olds during the week ending January 30. Florian Krammer, an immunologist at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, said that the distinction between the two age groups is striking. 

Although the biomedical distinction between the two ages is likely to be minor, he pointed out that while 12-year-old children received 30 micrograms of the vaccine — the same dose as adults — children aged 11 received only ten micrograms.

Covid-19 has been linked to at least 851 deaths in children under the age of 17 and nearly 7,000 cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, a rare but severe condition. During the Omicron outbreak, more children were admitted to hospitals than at any other time during the pandemic. So, this will be a serious issue to find out the perfect vaccine for the children. 


Nikki Attkisson

With over 15 years as a practicing journalist, Nikki Attkisson found herself at Powdersville Post now after working at several other publications. She is an award-winning journalist with an entrepreneurial spirit and worked as a journalist covering technology, innovation, environmental issues, politics, health etc. Nikki Attkisson has also worked on product development, content strategy, and editorial management for numerous media companies. She began her career at local news stations and worked as a reporter in national newspapers.

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