An advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted Wednesday to recommend Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine for use in kids ages 12 to 15. The vote was 14-0, with one abstention.
The vote comes two days after the Food and Drug Administration amended its emergency use authorization for Pfizer's vaccine to include this age group and is considered one of the final steps needed before shots start going into arms.
CDC Dr. Rochelle Walensky accepted the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, recommendation shortly after the meeting ended on Wednesday afternoon, clearing the way for the shots' use in the 17 million young people in this age group.
"CDC now recommends that this vaccine be used among this population, and providers may begin vaccinating them right away," Walensky said in a statement.
During remarks Wednesday, President Joe Biden said his administration is working to get the vaccines to pediatricians and family doctors, as well as school-based clinics and community health centers.
What's more, he said, "more than 15,000 pharmacies across this country will be ready to vaccinate this age group" by Thursday morning.
Some states, such as Delaware and Georgia, began administering the shots immediately after the FDA's action. But most major pharmacies and clinics said they would wait for the CDC's input before vaccinating kids ages 12 to 15.
Vaccinating this age group is seen as a key way for middle and high schools to reopen fully by this fall.
The shots will be given in the exact same way they're given to adults — three weeks apart — with the same dosage. This is not unusual; doses of flu shots, for example, are also given at the same dosage levels for kids and adults.
Covid-19 has not sickened adolescents as significantly as older adults, though as of Thursday, more than 3.8 million cases had been reported in children, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. That represents 14 percent of total cases in the U.S.
But there has been a gradual increase in the Covid-19 hospitalization rate among 12- to 17-year-olds over the past two months, Dr. Sara Oliver, a medical epidemiologist with CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during the Wednesday ACIP meeting. Sixty-one percent of those teens had at least one underlying condition, most commonly obesity and asthma.
Covid-19 is also linked to a condition called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C.
As of May 3, Oliver said that more than 3,700 MIS-C cases had been reported, and they tended to be more serious in teenagers than in younger children — adding evidence for the potential benefits of vaccination.
More than 2,200 participants ages 12 to 15 were included in Pfizer's Phase 3 clinical trial in the U.S. About half got the real vaccine, while the others received placebos.
The shot was found to be 100 percent effective. Eighteen people in the placebo group developed symptomatic Covid-19, compared to zero cases among those who got the real shots.