Do kids need COVID vaccines for school to return to normal? Here’s what experts say

There’s been a fierce focus on what the remaining and next school year will look like as the coronavirus and its variants continue to spread, and as millions of Americans get vaccinated against COVID-19 every day.

Mounting evidence suggests coronavirus transmission in school settings is low, as well as the likelihood a school-aged kid will become severely ill from COVID-19. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance for K-12 schools, saying students should maintain a distance of at least 3 feet instead of 6 in classroom settings only if everyone, including staff, is wearing face masks.

But when will schools return to at least some sense of normalcy? And is it possible even if children aren’t vaccinated against COVID-19?

According to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, fall may be the best estimate for a normal school year — and no, vaccines aren’t needed, but vaccination among the nation’s youth would likely help speed the process.

“While I anticipate the fall season will look more like what it was before Covid, I really want to focus right now on the spring,” Cardona told NBC News on Wednesday. “My experience was when schools had to close, it wasn’t because Covid spread within the schools. It was because we had to quarantine educators. We had to quarantine teachers. Having the vaccination will help keep those doors open. Not only about opening schools, it’s really about making sure they stay open.”

“We’ve seen examples where schools can open safely and be effective, but we know that prioritizing vaccinations will only assist with that,” Cardona added.

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Anyone 18 and older can receive the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines when they are eligible in their states; the Pfizer shot is authorized for those 16 and older.

“For kids 12 and above, I think we’ll have a vaccine licensed before the 2021-2022 school year,” Dr. Robert Frenck, principal investigator for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine trial at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, told USA Today. And for children younger than 12, Frenck estimates a vaccine will be available in spring 2022, “maybe a bit sooner.”

Moderna announced on Tuesday that children between 6 months and 12 years old have started to receive its vaccine in a mid- to late-stage study aimed at learning if its shot is safe and effective in kids. The company plans to enroll about 6,750 children in the U.S. and Canada.

Another goal is to determine what dose is safe for children. While teens are likely to receive the same dose as adults, kids under 12 may need a lower one because their immune systems are better equipped to fight the coronavirus if infected, experts say.

Pfizer is already testing its vaccine in kids over 12, with plans to start additional studies in children between 5 and 11 in the upcoming months and in kids younger than 5 later in 2021. Johnson & Johnson also said it has plans to test its vaccine in children soon.

Results from these studies are expected sometime this summer.

“As we head into the fall, aiming to get schools fully back open, I think vaccination of older kids … is not only feasible but could be very helpful in containing further outbreaks into the fall and winter,” Dr. Mark McClellan, a Duke University physician and former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said during a Thursday virtual briefing.

“We should see a lot of progress on reopening in the summer... I would expect that if we have COVID under good control, we’re probably thinking about 2022 before younger kids might get vaccinated, just to make sure we have the doses right.”

And kids matter, too, when it comes to herd immunity — when enough people have protection against COVID-19 that the virus can no longer spread easily between people.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said during a Thursday Senate hearing with the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that “we don’t really know what that magical point of herd immunity is, but we do know that if we get the overwhelming population vaccinated, we’re going to be in good shape.”

He added that “we ultimately would like to get and have to get children into that mix,” especially high school students who are capable of spreading the coronavirus at higher rater than younger kids.