CDC panel endorses Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for use in adolescents

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Dr. Jonathan Javitt, CEO of NeuroRX & adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, joined Yahoo Finance to discuss the latest on covid-19.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: We have some breaking news. A CDC panel has endorsed Pfizer's COVID vaccine to use in children ages 12 to 15. Here to talk more about that, we want to bring in Dr. Jonathan Javitt, the CEO of NeuroRx, also an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and also our health care reporter, Anjalee Khemlani joining the conversation as well. Dr. Javitt, when you take a look at the fact that shots in children ages 12 to 15 could potentially start as early as tomorrow, getting those children vaccinated, I guess what kind of a difference do you expect this to be or do you expect this to make in transmission?

JONATHAN JAVITT: Well, I think it's fantastic news, because even though COVID tends not to be lethal in children compared to the way it is in adults, it certainly can be lethal. But more importantly, those children have parents and grandparents to whom they come home every day and to whom they're completely capable of bringing a lethal virus. So having the population vaccinated is the first part. Then we need therapeutics to treat those people who get COVID despite vaccination.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Doctor, Anjalee here. Looking at what is going on here in the US, I know that Israel has been largely the comparison for doing things right. Can you give us a little bit of insight into specifically the children and the adolescent age group and how the difference is in thinking there?

JONATHAN JAVITT: Well, I think Israel is still grappling with when and how to vaccinate children. They focused on getting the adult population vaccinated starting with the most vulnerable people, and the results have been spectacular. You've seen a real plummeting rate of COVID-19. And it proves the vaccination works. At the same time, as we're increasingly challenged with variants, we need approaches to people who are going to get COVID despite vaccination.

ADAM SHAPIRO: But what do you say to parents who might have a legitimate fear about these are children who are still growing, even 12, 15-year-olds still have several years ahead of them, about their hesitancy to perhaps have that inoculation for their children?

JONATHAN JAVITT: I think certainly it's difficult to order a parent to vaccinate a child against a disease that may not be immediately lethal to the child. But so far, the evidence is that the likelihood of complications from the COVID vaccine is extraordinarily low.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: And looking at that, we know that there are still some concerns about some side effects from different vaccines, including Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. AstraZeneca has also had some of its hurdles. But when it comes to this the, to Adam's point, the question of the children's group, and going even younger than that.

We're waiting on the data to show what can happen with the younger, most, the youngest population, largely speaking, they've been believed to be carriers, but not necessarily symptomatic, experiencing the disease in a symptomatic way. So what does this younger population from the 12 to 15, how does this authorization and approval for use there maybe direct us on how to think about the very young population?

JONATHAN JAVITT: Well, I think as you said, the most important thing we need is data. And until there's data on safety, it's certainly not appropriate to offer blanket suggestions that a population be vaccinated. But so far, as we move to younger and younger populations, the safety data have held up.

SEANA SMITH: Doctor, I want to get your thoughts just on the Novavax news that we heard earlier this week. They're pushing back the timeline for their COVID-19 vaccine. How significantly do you think that this could potentially affect those developing countries that are already struggling to get shots?

JONATHAN JAVITT: Well, as people know, I've recently been in the Eurasia region, talked to ministries of health, talked with other representatives, and there's no question that we need to do everything we can to get both vaccines and therapeutics to those populations as quickly as possible. Even as Americans are seeing a lower rate of COVID infection, a lower rate of lethality from COVID, those countries are seeing a nightmare. And we need to do whatever we can to move vaccines, to move therapeutics into those regions as quickly as possible.

ADAM SHAPIRO: What insight do we have, if any, as to the efficacy of the vaccines on the variant which seems to be predominant in India?

JONATHAN JAVITT: That's an area where I'm just not qualified. There's no question that that variant is truly frightening. There's no question that the CDC and other experts are looking every day at the ability of that area to variant to overcome the vaccine platforms that we have, and I'm not one of those people on that front line.

SEANA SMITH: Dr. Jonathan Javitt, CEO of NeuroRx, also an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and of course, our thanks to Anjalee Khemlani as well.