The Food and Drug Administration said Monday an advisory panel would meet June 15 to discuss use of the vaccines developed by Pfizer Inc. and German partner BioNTech SE as well as the one developed by Moderna Inc. in children aged 6 months to four years old. The announcement came after Pfizer and BioNTech said three doses of their vaccine proved 80% effective at preventing symptomatic infections in children in that cohort. If the panel adopts a positive opinion on the shots, the FDA could authorize them by as soon as June 16 or 17, bringing relief to parents of children who will finally be eligible for vaccination.
COVID cases continue to rise across the U.S. and trend at the highest levels seen since March, driven by the BA.2 variant of omicron, and two other subvariants that appear to be even more infectious. The U.S. is averaging 107,316 cases a day, up 46% from two weeks ago, according to a New York Times tracker. The country is averaging 24,747 hospitalizations a day, up 28% from two weeks ago. The daily death toll has fallen to 312 on average, down 15% from two weeks ago. Cases are higher in nearly every state, but the Northeast and Midwest are being particularly hard hit with case reports in both regions now higher than they were at the peak of last summer’s delta surge. There are concerns that case numbers are even higher, as many people are now testing at home and the data is not being collected.
On a global basis, total cases are now above 5256 million. Total deaths are above 6.27 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University, with the U.S. still leading the way with 83.4 million cases and 1,002,377 deaths.
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