Vaccines for kids between the ages of 5 and 11 will likely be available in the first half of November, top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said on Oct. 24, predicting a timetable that could see many kids getting fully vaccinated before the end of 2021.

Pfizer BioNTech, COVID booster

The Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine showed 90.7 percent efficacy against the coronavirus in a clinical trial of children 5 to 11 years old, the U.S. drugmaker said on Oct. 22.

Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca have been running “dress rehearsals” by adapting their current formulations of Covid-19 vaccines to match present known SARS-CoV-2 variants.

British health authorities, as well as global experts, are closely watching a subtype of the Delta variant that appears to be rising in the UK.

A booster dose of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and German partner BioNTech SE restored efficacy to 95.6 percent against the virus, including the Delta variant, data released by the companies from a large study showed on Oct. 21.

Novartis agreed to expand the company’s fill-and-finish support for the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine by using manufacturing facilities in Ljubljana, Slovenia, to fill at least 24 million doses in 2022, the Swiss drugmaker said on Oct. 21.

The Pfizer Inc./BioNTech SE Covid-19 vaccine was 93 percent effective in preventing hospitalizations among those aged 12 to 18, according to an analysis released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Oct. 19.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is planning to allow Americans to get a different booster shot of a Covid-19 vaccine than the one initially taken, the New York Times reported on Oct. 18.

Outside advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Oct. 15 unanimously recommended the regulatory agency authorize a second shot of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine for all recipients of the one-dose inoculation.

People who got Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine as a first shot had a stronger immune response when boosted with vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna, a study run by the National Institutes of Health showed on Oct. 13.