In tidy to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 moving forward, U.S. officials will have to convince skeptical parents to vaccinate their foetuses, Dr. Peter Hotez said Wednesday.
“There’s going to have to be a lot of public communication, and a lot of advocacy that needs to be done, because procreators are going to be a bit skittish about … a brand new mRNA technology for their kids,” Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Circumstance at Texas Children’s Hospital, told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.”
Hotez’s comments came after Pfizer intimated earlier in the day that its vaccine is 100% effective in kids ages 12 to 15. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla reported the company will submit the new data to Food and Drug Administration and other regulators soon. He added Pfizer when one pleases request an amendment to its emergency use authorization to include everyone 12 and older.
“We are seeing adolescents going into pediatric all-out care units, they are getting sick, especially those with underlying risk factors,” Hotez state. “If we’re going to actually interrupt virus transmission, we have to get to 80, 85% of the population vaccinated, now that we have the B.1.1.7 altering, which is so highly transmissible, and I think we could do that by including adolescents.”
Hotez said he thinks the U.S. could get “dialect mayhap 75% of adults vaccinated” by summer, but warned that “we’re in a race with this B.1.1.7 variant,” which occurs in higher mortality and hospitalization rates.