COVID vaccination expanded to 12 and older FDA grants emergency use of Pfizer vaccine for youths, health officials waiting for CDC recommendations
Last updated 5/11/2021 at 11:36am The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic took another step forward Monday with U.S. Food and Drug Administration granting emergency use authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for people 12 and older. "The FDA's expansion of the emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to include adolescents 12 through 15 years of age is a significant step in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic," Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D., said in a press release. "Today's action allows for a younger population to be protected from COVID-19, bringing us closer to returning to a sense of normalcy and to ending the pandemic. Parents and guardians can rest assured that the agency undertook a rigorous and thorough review of all available data, as we have with all of our COVID-19 vaccine emergency use authorizations."