Promising Pfizer Results for Children’s Coronavirus Vaccine

Good news about teen vaccines

In clinical trials, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine Highly effective The two companies said Wednesday that they targeted adolescents aged 12 to 15. In this study, vaccinated children were not infected, and the vaccine produced stronger antibody responses in children than in young adults. The children did not experience any serious side effects.

If the findings are maintained, young teens and pre-teens may soon be able to roll up their sleeves and start taking selfies with a biceps band-aid. The findings have not yet been peer-reviewed and have not been published in scientific journals. But they excited the experts.

Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University, told her colleague Apuorwa Mandabili, “What a hell, I’m very happy to see this. It’s amazing.”

“This is really great news, and even parents of adolescents and even younger children should be very happy and optimistic,” said Apoorva.

“We’ve always known that children need to be vaccinated to get herd immunity,” she continued. “This news should hopefully convince parents who were skeptical about the effectiveness of vaccines to vaccinate their children.”

Apoorva says Pfizer and BioNTech will request the Food and Drug Administration to revise the emergency use authorization for the vaccine in the hope that it will begin vaccination of older children before the start of the next school year. I reported.

So what exactly does this news mean for schools?

In the fall, schools, especially middle and high schools, are more likely to look normal. With the progress of immunization of adults, public health professionals have already planned that the school district should provide full-time face-to-face instruction to all students at the beginning of the next school year. said.

Still, the prospect that children over the age of 12 may have access to the vaccine before the start of the school year is another excuse. Hesitant district We promise to offer a full-time schedule in the fall.

When many children and adolescents are vaccinated, it also brings the country closer to herd immunity and reduces infection rates.

However, that “if” is big.Two recent studies, neither of which have been peer-reviewed yet, have found substantive. Vaccine hesitant Among parents. In one study Vaccine concerns Mainly from mothers, especially white Republican mothers.

“With the spread of both accurate information and political disinformation about possible side effects, many mothers feel that they can control the risk of the coronavirus itself rather than the risk of the coronavirus vaccine,” the author of the study said. One person, Jessica Caralco, writes Washington Post Opinion Piece..

Part of the challenge in persuading parents to vaccinate their children is that it is now rare for children to experience serious viral illness. But experts say it is important to vaccinate children to achieve herd immunity and prevent the emergence of new mutants.

Another unanswered question is whether students will eventually need to be vaccinated against the coronavirus in order to attend school. Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent, the country’s second largest school district, Said in January When a vaccine for children becomes available, students will need to bring their children back to campus. He said unvaccinated students would learn remotely.

However, it is generally the state, not the district, that determines the vaccines students need to attend school.Some governors already say they do Does not require coronavirus vaccine For kids. And experts say that requesting a vaccine can backfire by creating resistance to it.

Limited vaccination may not make a difference in how schools operate, as politically conservative areas are willing to open schools as usual during a pandemic. But the fear is that the virus will spread and leave an opportunity for it to continue to mutate.

To hear more deeply: Apoorva We talked about vaccines for children in “The Daily”“Last month. She was a science reporter and she said she would apply for shots to her children as soon as possible.

Texas attacks affirmative action

In 2008, Texas high school student Abigail Fisher accused the University of Texas at Austin of refusing to apply for race because of race. She is white

Her proceedings extended to the Supreme Court. In 2016, the High Court ruled that a racial review to fill the last 25% of seats in Texas freshman class would use academic standards to fill the rest of the Constitution.

On Tuesday, Texas reviewed the case with a stunning brief submitted to the Supreme Court. “Abigail Fisher was right,” Brief said with all his heart. “The University of Texas was wrong.”

Conservative Republican Ken Paxton, Texas Justice Secretary, is prejudiced against Harvard University in what is known as Student vs. Harvard University for Fair Admissions. He submitted an Amikas brief to assist Asian-American students who accuse him of doing so. A Texas summary document requires the Supreme Court to hear a case lost by a student in a lower court.

“This brief is very unusual,” said Justin Driver, a law professor at Yale University, on Tuesday. The driver, the author of the book The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind, said the state was “very, very rare” to “declare their programs unconstitutional.” I called.

Paxton’s office did not respond to requests for comment. However, the driver pointed out that the former state litigants had taken the opposite action.

In 2008, James HoA solicitor general at the University of Texas at the time defended the University of Texas affirmative action admission policy, saying that the Supreme Court’s case law demanded just such a subtle system. The Attorney General handles the Supreme Court proceedings of the State Attorney General’s office.

Ho was then part of a private legal team that defended the policy in the Supreme Court of Fisher v. Texas University. Ho was a conservative who represented Judge Clarence Thomas. President Trump has appointed him as a judge in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, just below the Supreme Court.

Paxton is well known for taking a conservative position on national issues. He led the indictment to defeat Obamacare, lost local authorities for President Trump’s maintenance of Mask’s mission, and sought to overturn the election results in the four fierce battle states he sued.Some of his top aides said He should be investigated In connection with the abuse of offices and bribes. Paxton said the claim was false.

In each area

University updates

• The whole university Washington Status Have seen Rapid increase in cases..So have University of Michigan..

• The Supreme Court Listen to the discussion About wednesday NCAAAs the debate about compensation for college athletes rages at Capitol Hill.

• Can a person vaccinated against the coronavirus spread it to others? New research More than 12,000 vaccinated college students try to answer that question.

• The Ministry of Education is moving to reduce student loan debt that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Abandon college loan rules For thousands of students with disabilities.

• Two Opinions from the Times: Issued editorial board Sharp rebuke Against a loophole in the Trump era policy of allowing for-profit colleges to exploit veterans.And columnist Michelle Goldberg is Republican-led. Cancel the diversity program so Idaho University.

K-12 update

• Boarding schools are boomingAs a parent who can afford to pay tuition, register to study your children directly.

• High school football coach Duxbury, Massachusetts, Be fired After using anti-Semitic language in his team.

• The· Virginia The Ministry of Education requires school districts to accept student gender identity. Two conservative groups Sue Beyond the policy.

• Washington DC, will Pay a tuition fee to a high school student to take a class To combat the loss of learning due to a pandemic this summer.

• Good reading from the Times: There are few students Raise your hand Becoming a teacher this year is part of a long-term decline in interest. The education program saw a significant drop in enrollment this year, and Teach for America said it had fewer corps applications in the fall of 2021 compared to this period last year.

“How about Penelope?”

Jessica Rosenberg, 36, has been working as a content strategist at home since the pandemic began. She and her husband, David, have a trade-off, so they can each have a two-year-old daughter as a parent and work from home.

Instead of feeding and bathing Penelope most of the time in parenting, Jessica now plays with her daughter.

“Now, the plays are studded every day, all day long,” she said. “It has been needed and appreciated to counter the weight of the year.”

Jessica knows how lucky her family is. Still, it’s difficult, and unanswered questions are reopening and imminent. When she sends Penelope back to childcare, Jessica knows that nap time and meals do not include a mask.

Children are at very low risk of serious illness due to the virus and are given day care because of mitigation measures. Have been discovered Be relatively safe. But Jessica still feels a little blind and flying.

“How about Penelope?” Jessica said. “I have such a question about how to understand the risks and benefits of that age group. I don’t think it’s really talked about.”

A year after playing only with her parents, Penelope now meets a friend. The two toddlers dug together, became messy and laughed. As if the world around them was normal.

“Dating with a 36-year-old child is very different from dealing with a 2-year-old child,” said Jessica. “I’m worried that life may feel more serious to her.”

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