CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen went on CNN on Tuesday to say that she would wait to see if the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective before requiring children under the age of five to receive them.
Pfizer is set to ask the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “green-light its COVID vaccine for children under five,” according to CNN Anchor John King Tuesday, Feb. 1.
Pfizer and BioNTech have reportedly started submitting their applications for emergency approval due to the rise of hospitalizations in children.
In response to this, Dr. Leana Wen said that she’s the mom of two little kids under five and she “can’t wait till they are vaccinated, but I would wait until we find that the vaccines are safe and effective, and I’m not sure that we can say that at the moment because we just don’t have the data.”
Dr. Wen said back in April 2021, that “We are not going to reach herd immunity because of vaccine hesitancy,” and in order to get people to become vaccinated we need to “make it clear to them [those who are hesitant] that the vaccine is the ticket back to pre-pandemic life.”
Wen then continued, suggesting that the window to “tie reopening policy to vaccination status” is narrowing. “If everything is reopened, then what’s the carrot going to be? How are we going to incentivize people to actually get the vaccine? And that’s why the CDC and the Biden Administration needs to come out a lot bolder and say ‘if you’re vaccinated, you can do all these things, here are all the freedoms that you have. ”
