Pfizer Vaccine Less Protective for Younger Kids: Preprint

The vaccine’s effectiveness in children ages 5 to 11 rapidly declined over the course of a month, according to new research that looked at the health outcomes of hundreds of thousands of children in New York during the Omicron surge.

Written byDan Robitzski

| 3 min read

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A masked doctor in a white coat and blue gloves administers a vaccine into the arm of a masked child.

Image credit:© ISTOCK.COM, SIDE SHOW STOCK

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Update (May 23): Pfizer and BioNTech today announced that unpublished data show the companies’ COVID-19 vaccine is about 80 percent effective at preventing symptomatic infections in children between the ages of 6 months and under 5 years when a third dose is administered at least two months after the first two. While data are still trickling in, the announcement suggests that the three-dose regimen prompts an immune response comparable to that triggered in adults by the existing, two-dose regimen, researchers tell The New York Times.

Update (March 2): New data released yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) presents a more complete view of the protections that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine offers young children, according to the Associated Press. The CDC analyzed pediatric hospitalization rates from April 2021 through January 2022 and found that the vaccine was 74 percent effective at preventing hospitalization among 5- to 11-year-olds and ...

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Meet the Author

Dan Robitzski
Dan is an award-winning journalist based in Los Angeles who joined The Scientist as a reporter and editor in 2021. Ironically, Dan’s undergraduate degree and brief career in neuroscience inspired him to write about research rather than conduct it, culminating in him earning a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University in 2017. In 2018, an Undark feature Dan and colleagues began at NYU on a questionable drug approval decision at the FDA won first place in the student category of the Association of Health Care Journalists' Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. Now, Dan writes and edits stories on all aspects of the life sciences for the online news desk, and he oversees the “The Literature” and “Modus Operandi” sections of the monthly TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. Read more of his work at danrobitzski.com.
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