CDC approves low-dose Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5-11

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  approved the low-dose Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5-11 Tuesday. 

According to The Hill, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed off on the agency’s approval following a unanimous vote by its expert panel to allow the vaccine for school-age children.

Doses of the vaccine have already been arriving at pharmacies and pediatricians' offices across the nation in expectation of tonight’s decision by the CDC  

The Biden administration says it has enough doses of Pfizer to vaccinate all 28 million U.S. children ages 5-11.

However, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation survey, only 27% of parents say they will get their children vaccinated immediately now that the low-dose version of the Pfizer vaccine is approved.

"The chances a child will have severe COVID, require hospitalization or develop a long-term complication like MIS-C [multisystem inflammatory syndrome] remains low, but still the risk remains too high and too devastating to our children and far higher for many other diseases for which we vaccinate our children,” said Walensky at the commencement of the panel's meeting.

As cases of the virus continue to fall across the country, the White House is hoping this mass vaccination effort will help fend off a potential winter wave of the virus.

Parents can begin scheduling appointments to get their children vaccinated by visiting the website Vaccines.gov