The FDA on Monday also announced that some children ages 5 to 11 may receive a third vaccine dose if they are immunocompromised.
Roughly 62% of children between 12 and 17 have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 52% are fully vaccinated.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the only authorized vaccine for children 5 to 17 years old.
Total cases increased in the US by 50% during the first week of December. There was another 58% increase in covid cases from the week prior during the week of Dec. 21 to Dec. 27, The Associated Press reported, citing the CDC. Severe illness in children due to COVID-19, fortunately, appears to be uncommon.
A recent CDC report examining children over the age of 5 who were hospitalized for COVID-19 at six hospitals in July and August found that two out of three of the children had at least one underlying health condition, the most common of which was obesity.
Less than 1% of the children who were eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine had been vaccinated.
As far as pediatric deaths go, there have been just over 1,000 attributed to COVID-19, out of the roughly 6.8 million positive pediatric cases reported since the start of the pandemic, according to data released by the CDC.
Dr. David Rubin, a researcher at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, has said the recent rise in pediatric hospitalizations is largely due to children becoming infected with both the delta variant and the more contagious omicron variant, which in a matter of weeks became the nation's dominant variant.
