West Virginia's coronavirus response coordinator says herd immunity very unlikely with COVID-19

[TexasTowelie]

WHEELING — West Virginia’s coronavirus response coordinator doesn’t think herd immunity will happen with COVID-19.

Missing that threshold isn’t as much about those who decline a COVID-19 vaccine, Dr. Clay Marsh said this past week. It’s more about those who can’t receive a vaccine right now — children.

Only people age 16 and older can receive the Pfizer vaccine. The Moderna vaccine is authorized only for people 18 and older. Vulnerable children may get vaccinated, but there remains a significant swath of the United States population that can’t get a shot and will still be susceptible to getting sick.

“The absolute definition of herd immunity for a virus that has a reproductive rate or transmission rate that this virus does would be about 80 percent,” Marsh said. “And since I don’t think we’ll be immunizing our children, I don’t think we’ll get up to 80 percent as a country. Now, enough people might get infected to substitute for that, so it’s possible.”

Read more: https://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/local-news/2021/03/marsh-says-herd-immunity-very-unlikely-with-covid-19/
(Parkersburg News and Sentinel)

[Yonnie3]

1. There are trials underway in adolescents

We are perhaps three months away from vaccinating people under 16 years old.

The first two vaccines to receive emergency use authorization in the United States for adults are now in clinical trials for young people, with initial results expected by summer. Pfizer and BioNTech have completed enrollment of more than 2200 volunteers ages 12 to 15, and Moderna is wrapping up recruitment of a planned 3000 volunteers with the same minimum age. Both vaccines are based on messenger RNA coding for the coronavirus spike protein, which prompts production of protective antibodies. Another three vaccines, which use a harmless virus to deliver a gene for the same protein, are also taking steps toward pediatric authorization. On 12 February, AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford announced they would begin to test their vaccine in 300 U.K. children ages 6 to 17. Johnson & Johnson, whose adult vaccine will be considered by U.S. regulators this week, says it's moving toward testing in young people, and Sinovac Biotech is testing its product on children in China ages 3 to 17.

Lots more at https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6532/874