Previously, regulators had authorized it for those aged 16 years and over. It is still the only one approved for use in 16-to-18-year-olds in the US.
"The light at the end of the tunnel is growing, and today it got a little brighter," President
"This is a promising development in our fight against the virus," he said, adding that thanks to more and more people getting inoculated, "cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to fall."
The
The commissioner added that "parents and guardians can rest assured that the agency undertook a rigorous and thorough review of all available data, as we have with all of our Covid-19 vaccine emergency use authorizations."
"Today's action allows for a younger population to be protected from Covid-19, bringing us closer to returning to a sense of normalcy and to ending the pandemic," she said.
Experts haves said that the immunization of children, who make up about 20 percent of the US population, is necessary to end the coronavirus pandemic, pointing out that the country is unlikely to achieve herd immunity until minors are also vaccinated.
To date, 152.8 million people (46 percent of the US population) have received at least one dose of a vaccine, of which 115.5 million (34.8 percent) are already fully inoculated, according to the
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