Title of article Covid: US approves Pfizer vaccine for children over five

Source of article
BBC news

URL from which the article came

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59044853

Date of article 03.11.2021

Word count
799

Date the commentary was written

14.12.2021

Section of the syllabus the article relates to

Microeconomics

Key concept Choice

Article

The US has approved the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for children aged five to 11, clearing
the way for millions of young Americans to get vaccinated.
The decision by Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle
Wolensky comes after careful consideration from US drug regulators.
The US is already giving the vaccine to those aged 12 and over. This approval
affects some 28 million US children.
Experts argue that jabbing the young is necessary for a return to normal life.
The authorisation comes after expert panels at the CDC and the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) weighed the risks and benefits of vaccinating children against
Covid-19.
FDA officials determined that the vaccine was around 91% effective in preventing
Covid in young children, and that their immune response was comparable to that
seen in people aged 16 to 25. No serious side effects were found by researchers.
Children aged five to 11 are given a jab with a third of the dosage given to adults,
creating a new logistical challenge for drug suppliers and doctors. Smaller needles
are also used and the second jab is required three weeks after the first.
In a statement, President Joe Biden said the child vaccine "will allow parents to end
months of anxious worrying about their kids, and reduce the extent to which children
spread the virus to others".
Covid has led 2,300 schools to close this year, affecting 1.2 million pupils and 78,000
teachers since August, NBC reported on Tuesday, citing a senior CDC official.
Among those between five and 11 years old, there have been about 1.8 million
Covid cases confirmed in the US, according to the CDC. Fewer than two hundred
have died, and most of those had underlying medical conditions.
Some medical experts say that, given the persistence of the Delta variant and the
return to in-person schooling, vaccinating children is a crucial next step in fighting the
pandemic.
"Parents need to understand the urgency of vaccination because the pandemic is not
over," said Dr James Versalovic, pathologist in chief at Texas Children's Hospital
(TCH).
Dr Versalovic estimates at least 1,500 children have been diagnosed since the
beginning of the pandemic with the virus at TCH, the largest children's hospital in the
US. "No age group has been spared," he said.
What kind of opposition does it face?
Vaccine hesitancy remains a challenge for US medical authorities. Uptake in the
adult population has stalled below 60% over the past several months.
Only a third of parents in a poll last month by the Kaiser Family Foundation said they
would get their children vaccinated "right away". Another third said they would like to
"wait and see".
Some parents have expressed concern about hundreds of cases of myocarditis, an
inflammation of the heart muscle, that have been reported predominantly in young
adults who took the vaccine, mostly after the second jab.
 Heart inflammation link to Pfizer and Moderna jabs
Dr Liz Mumper, chief executive of the Rimland Center for Integrative Medicine, thinks
"children should not be given treatments they do not need", pointing to their low risk
of contracting Covid and to the lack of long-term data on Covid vaccines.
"I am opposed to rolling these vaccines out to all children in a one size fits all model,"
she said. "The vast majority of children already have mild cases."
A legal immunity protection offered to drug companies during the Trump
administration has also made it nearly impossible to sue drug manufacturers for any
side affects suffered from vaccination until 2024.
What would a rollout look like?
On Monday, the White House said that it had already purchased enough vaccine to
jab all 28 million children who have just become eligible to receive it.
White House Covid Response Coordinator Jeffrey Zients told reporters that 15
million low-dose children's jabs had already been moved from Pfizer storage facilities
to distribution centres.
The decision to begin preparing the shipments was made last week after the FDA
granted approval, Mr Zients said, adding that jabs will probably begin before the end
of the week.
Last month, the US announced plans to distribute the jabs via more than 25,000
paediatric offices and 100 children's hospitals, as well as through pharmacies,
school-based clinics and community health centres.
The plan is designed to take into account that, for this age group, everything from
dosing to counselling support from clinicians to the post-jab waiting period looks
different than for other age groups, and parents will need a trusted voice in the room.
"It's one thing to have Dr Fauci on the national news say you should get your kid
vaccinated, but it's another thing for a trusted physician in the community to have
that direct conversation with families," says Amy Wimpey Knight, president of the
Children's Hospital Association.
  Long Covid in children 'nowhere near scale feared'
 Children's very low Covid risk confirmed by study

Mass vaccination sites are not good settings for jabbing young children, Ms Knight
tells the BBC, so state and local health officials will need to quickly link up with
schools, community centres and doctors' offices instead.
"All plans are local. That's what we learned the first time," she says.
Do doctors support the plan?
Patients at Texas Children's Hospital participated in Pfizer's clinical trials for children.
Any side effects were "easily treatable and monitored", said Dr Versalovic.
"We are fully confident in the paediatric Covid vaccines. It's been tailored to
children," he said, referring to the reduced dosage.
For a large provider like TCH, ensuring adequate supply at multiple care locations
will be of primary concern, he said.
At smaller paediatric practices, physicians are a bit more circumspect.
Dr Robert Dracker, medical director of Summerwood Pediatrics in upstate New York,
warned that a vaccine rollout for kids will collide with other realities: the onset of flu
season, the mental health crisis of school children, and staffing shortages.
"Paediatricians' offices have been struggling terribly over the last few years," he said.
Dr Dracker says state health officials have set out guidelines and plan to dispense
300-dose allotments to his office. But he is frustrated by the lack of co-ordination.
"We have to try and contact all of our parents to find out how many of them might
want their child vaccinated, and then set up separate clinic times," he explained.
"Instead of dictating what we have to do, [government officials] really need to listen
to the input of practising physicians," he said.

Commentary

The majority of the governments in the world are trying to stop the spread and intensity of
symptoms of covid-19. One of the proven ways to doing so is to get vaccinated. That’s why
after testing the US government has allowed the Pfizer vaccine to be used on children over 5
years old. This choice provides positive externalities in the short-term for society, but the
long-term effect is still unknown. The benefits of the vaccine have been proven throughout
the adult population and the effectiveness of the vaccine has been shown to be 91% in
children above the age of 5. The choice of vaccination falls onto to the parents.

At this moment a survey was done, which showed that only 33% of parents were willing to
vaccinate their children. The opportunity cost of this choice is in the long-term risks that have
not been studied yet. This opportunity costs has also split the medical community, who are
dealing with the current consequences of the covid-19 spread. The medical experts in
epidemiology are pushing to vaccinate children, but practising family physicians are still split
in this decision.
(Q1;P1) represents the current market equilibrium of the Pfizer vaccine market before the
external forces being applied to the graph. After letting the Pfizer vaccine be given to kids,
which opened up new markets for Pfizer. This increased their demand to (Q2;P2), which
would be an optimal case for this market. This is assuming no external factors to the
production facilities or logistics of the product are applicable. That’s, why we can see the
demand curve shift to the left as represented in the graph. Q1 to Q2 would be the increase in
the supply of vaccines. P1 and P2 is the expected price rise, if no external factors are taken
into account. The expected welfare gain of this would quite considerable with positive
benefits of the vaccine to society in the short-term.

The key concept of choice really is conveyed in this article as there is an important choice to
be made, which can impact many of the stakeholders involved in this market. When
reflecting on the survey we have not been given any parameters on the depth of this survey
that was made whilst this decision on vaccination was made. A big part of the enrolment of
the vaccine is, how efficient the logistics of both the different dosage sizes will be given out
and how efficiently every vaccine will be sent out to family doctors, where the vaccination of
children will take place. These are the external factors, which will impact the demand of the
product, if the product is not able to get to the desired customer.
This is a very different enrolment of vaccines, when compared to the adults that got the
vaccine earlier. This envolves deep ethical issues that come, when dealing with people as
young as that. This will make the opportunity costs even more damaging if the consequences
are met both in short-term or long term. The change will be good in the short-term as it will
attempt to stop the spread of the virus amongst younger children, who go to public
institutions. The doses had to be changed, which already has been done by the US
government, which will help with meeting the demand of the vaccine. The long-term risks of
this Pfizer vaccine has not yet been tested and seen, which creates an opportunity costs that
can change the demand in the short-term.

The theory assumes that every consumer will have a perfect choice to make whether to get
the vaccine or not to get it. It does not take into account every personal risks that are involved
for the consumer. One of the problems with vaccines for children are that they will create a
more selfish choice and not think about those, who are not able to take the vaccine due to
some underlying problem. All of this is not taken into account when enrolling and preparing
the vaccine, which will create a market failure of too much supply prepared compared to the
demand and necessity for the product. This product will benefit society, producers,
consumers and the government in the short term. Society will be able to reap the positive
externalities that come with vaccine, the government will be able to stop spending sooner on
the covid-19 virus, producers will be able to sell of the vaccine with a good marginal profit
and the consumer will be able to get the benefits of the vaccine. The problem arises, when the
governments expectation of demand does not meet the actual markets demand. This will not
create an issue for the producer, who has already sold of the vaccine. This will create a
market failure if not addressed in a future policy.