But as the Biden administration struggles to boost low vaccination rates in Southern states amid a troublesome level of Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy, decisions about safety precautions in schools will be made, as always, at the local level.
A very small number of children up to age 18 have died from Covid-19 in the US -- 391 out of more than 606,000 deaths, according to CDC data. But there is great uneasiness among parents since only children 12 and older are currently eligible to be vaccinated. There have been notable outbreaks at summer camps this year, including infections among more than 125 campers and adults who attended a summer camp run by a South Texas church.
Pfizer offered an important caveat that was mostly lost in the shock of its announcement, confirming that the vaccine's protection against"severe disease remained high across the full six months." The drop in efficacy manifested as a rise in symptomatic illness, the company said, while also pointing to the emergence of dangerous new variants as reason to get a jump on authorization for a booster.
"We respect what the pharmaceutical company is doing, but the American public should take their advice from the CDC and the FDA," said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases."The important bottom line in all of this is that the efficacy against severe disease -- particularly hospitalization that might lead to death in some individuals -- was still really very good.
Public and private institutions have largely spoken with one voice as the vaccines were developed and distributed, a useful tool for public health leaders working to chip away at hesitance as they pushed forward with this unprecedented mass vaccination campaign. An analysis by Georgetown University this week underscored the political challenge of changing the mindset of those who remain unvaccinated by showing the huge clusters of unvaccinated people in the Southern United States. An increasing number of studies have demonstrated that vaccine coverage maps bear a striking resemblance to the 2020 election results map -- meaning it may be very hard for the Biden administration to shift attitudes toward vaccine acceptance in those regions.