New York City, NY – OCTOBER 31: A kid impersonated Wonder Woman for Halloween at Fort Green Park on October 31, 2020 in New YorkCity The CDC shared on their site alternative methods to still commemorate the vacation while being safe. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
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Kids must have the ability to go trick-or-treating this Halloween with a number of cautions, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stated on Sunday.
“I certainly hope so,” Walensky stated on CBS’ “Face the Nation” when asked whether it’s safe for kids to go trick-or-treating this year. “If you’re able to be outdoors, absolutely,” she stated.
The head of the CDC likewise suggested that moms and dads and kids “limit crowds” on Halloween.
“I wouldn’t necessarily go to a crowded Halloween party, but I think that we should be able to let our kids go trick-or-treating in small groups,” Walensky stated. “I hope that we can do that this year.”
On Monday, Pfizer and BioNTech revealed a smaller sized dosage of their Covid-19 vaccine is safe and produces a “robust” immune reaction in a scientific trial of kids ages 5 to 11.
Pfizer CEO and Chairman Albert Bourla stated the information would exist to the Food and Drug Administration quickly.
“It’s a question of days, not weeks,” Bourla stated in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.”
“Then it is up to FDA to be able to review the data, and come to their conclusions, and approve it or not,” Bourla stated. “If they approve it, we will be ready with our manufacturing to provide this new formulation of the vaccine.”
The vaccine for kids age 5 to 11 is “one-third of the dose that we are giving to the rest of the population.”
In the meantime, as schools are mainly back in session, the CDC’s Walensky informed “This Week” that kids who get the coronavirus are, mainly, not getting it while they are at school.
“Our science has actually demonstrated that the disease generally comes in from the community,” Walensky stated. “When schools are practicing a proper mitigation and prevention strategy, it is not where their transmission is actually happening.”
If appropriate security preventative measures are not taking place at schools, then transmission is much greater, the CDC chief stated.
Most schools, 96%, have actually remained open this academic year, Walensky stated.
“And yet, we also published a study out of Arizona that demonstrated that places that had no masks in place were three and a half times more likely to have outbreaks than places that did have masks in place,” Walensky stated.
“We know how to keep them safe,” Walensky stated. “And when we don’t use the proper mitigation strategies, they’re more likely to have outbreaks and have to close.”
