| William Brown has yet to set foot in the classroom during his freshman year of high school. Like many students, he's been kept at home by the pandemic. Days before Christmas, William took a step that could help him and other youngsters return to school sooner. With his parents' encouragement, the 15-year-old signed up for a study of Pfizer's vaccine in adolescents. "Hopefully, me doing this will allow people my age to get back to school," he said. Children will likely play an important role in achieving herd immunity. While the young don't generally suffer from severe cases of Covid-19, they remain a part of the chain of transmission. Immunizing kids could reduce the spread to people at higher risk, and help fully revive the economy. Vaccine makers are already laser-focused on reaching this next cohort. Pfizer and Moderna started recruiting participants at the end of last year, and could have safety data from the studies by summer. The University of Oxford, which developed a vaccine with AstraZeneca, is planning initial tests in 12- to 18-year-olds next month. And Johnson & Johnson will likely launch trials for children four to six weeks after receiving results from its adult studies, which are expected by early February.  Lisa Brown and her son, William, at their home in Raleigh, North Carolina.. Photographer: RACHEL JESSEN For safety reasons, most clinical trials for children start with teenagers and work their way down. A number of investigators said children under 5 may be included in future trials, but routine inoculations for young kids and babies can make those studies harder to organize. They're also more difficult for parents, who must monitor symptoms closely. "We have a long history of ensuring clinical trials among children are quite safe," said Lee Beers, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "That's why you enroll in phases. At the point that you get to pediatric trials, you've already gone through adult trials, where they've demonstrated safety." Vaccines that work in adults also tend to work in children, Beers said. "The things that are different tend to be dosage, the intensity of their immune response may vary, and the side effects may vary," she said. "But it would not be typical to have wildly different efficacy between adults and children." Should pediatric Covid-19 vaccines prove successful and be authorized for use within the year, parents overwhelmed by the pandemic may feel a sense of relief. "This year has been the strangest anyone has ever experienced," said Lisa Brown, William's mother. On Thursday, she will drive her son 35 minutes to get his second dose in the clinical trial. Lisa hopes William has gotten the real deal, and not the placebo. "It's important for this age group to get vaccinated so that they can go back to school, and things can go back to normal," she said.—Riley Griffin and Suzi Ring | 
⇉〖OpenLoad〗 2020 Superintelligence PelÃcula Completa En LÃnea released 2020. story: La vida de Carol Peters se trastorna cuando es selecci...
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