An independent U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel recommended Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 on Tuesday, and the FDA could authorize the vaccine’s use in this group within days. Vaccines available to young kids would be a big help in the fight against COVID-19; while deaths from the illness among children are few and far between, it’s still a top-20 leading cause of death for children in the U.S., and it has forced families with immunocompromised children to go to great lengths to avoid illness. In addition, though children may be less likely to get severe COVID-19 illness, research suggests that adolescents can spread the virus, even when they show no symptoms.
Despite this, it seems many parents in the U.S. don’t plan to have their kids vaccinated. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey released today and conducted Oct. 14 to 24 found that the majority of parents polled are in no rush to get their kids vaccinated—and that a growing share have no intention of getting their kids vaccinated at all. In fact, the share of parents who said they plan to get their 5- to 11-year-old kids vaccinated shrank seven percentage points from those polled in a similar survey conducted Sept. 13 to 22, while the number of parents who say they will “definitely not” get their children vaccinated rose six percentage points.
Perhaps counterintuitively, the release of more evidence about the safety of vaccines in children hasn’t made parents more confident: most people responded to the September poll before the release of new trial results from Pfizer and BioNTech on Sept. 20, which found that vaccines for children are safe and effective—although it’s also true that data from Moderna’s trial for children ages 6 to 11 was not released until Oct. 25, which means those surveyed in the October poll were not likely aware of those findings.
But in any case, in Kaiser’s October poll, many parents expressed concern about the vaccine’s safety; 77% said they were “very or somewhat” concerned that not enough is known about the long-term effects of vaccines in children, while 66% were “very or somewhat” concerned that the vaccines could affect their children’s fertility. Those concerns are largely unfounded based on the latest research; the FDA has found that the risks of COVID-19 to children are greater than the risks of taking the currently authorized vaccines, and the CDC says that there is no evidence that the vaccines impact fertility.
The vaccine rollout to the adult population leaves room for hope that many parents will change their minds. Over the course of 2021, vaccine hesitancy dropped after vaccines were widely available to the public—and as people knew more and more friends and acquaintances who were safely vaccinated, and could go about their daily lives at lower risk of getting COVID-19. Once many young children actually begin to receive vaccines—and, as evidence suggests, few have adverse reactions—it’s likely that many parents will feel more comfortable getting their own kids vaccinated.
TODAY'S CORONAVIRUS OUTLOOK
More than 245 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 6 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 4.97 million people have died. On Oct. 27, there were 487,221 new cases and 9,239 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here's every country that has reported over 4.5 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded more than 45.7 million coronavirus cases as of 6 a.m. E.T. today. More than 743,200 people have died. On Oct. 27, there were 76,957 new cases and 2,141 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Oct. 28, 6 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Pfizer and BioNTech said today the U.S. has purchased an additional 50 million doses of their vaccine, to prepare for pediatric inoculations. The doses, which are set to be delivered by April 12, bring the total doses secured from the companies to 600 million for Americans.
Cigarette sales in the U.S. rose for the first time in 20 years in 2020, increasing from 202.9 billion in 2019 to 203.7 billion, the Federal Trade Commission said earlier this week. Research has found that many people smoked more during the pandemic to cope with stress, including this survey published in June in the Journal of Internal Medicine. Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has warned that current or former smokers may be at higher risk of severe COVID-19.
The CDC added mood disorders including depression and schizophrenia to its list of conditions that put people at higher risk for severe COVID-19 yesterday. The move could potentially make millions more people eligible for booster shots in the U.S.
A large clinical trial published in the Lancet yesterday found evidence that an inexpensive, common antidepressant, fluvoxamine, reduces the risk of hospitalization or emergency care for high-risk patients diagnosed with early COVID-19. In the study, conducted in Brazil, 741 high-risk, symptomatic adult patients received fluvoxamine, while 756 others received a placebo. Of the patients who received the drug, 79 (11%) ended up in an emergency setting such as a hospital, compared to 119 (16%) of patients who received a placebo.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com. If you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please send them to covidquestions@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Tara Law and edited by Elijah Wolfson.
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