The state was the only jurisdiction in the nation to decline to place advance orders for the pediatric shots, which received authorization from the Food and Drug Administration on Friday. Final authorization from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected in the coming days, clearing the way for the last remaining unvaccinated age group to obtain shots.
The White House has been sharply critical of DeSantis’ position but in a statement Friday it welcomed the news that he was permitting individual doctors to order vaccines for their patients.
“We are encouraged that after repeated failures by Governor DeSantis to order COVID-19 vaccines even after every other state had ordered, the State of Florida is now permitting health care providers to order COVID-19 vaccines for our youngest children,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. “We believe it is critical to allow parents everywhere to have the choice to get their kids vaccinated and have a conversation with their pediatrician or health care provider.”
Florida officials said Thursday the jabs would be available at pharmacies and community health centers, which can preorder them directly from the federal government, and that children’s hospitals and other clinics would be able to order them from the federal government via a state portal and receive them quickly.
“Doctors can get it. Hospitals can get it. But there’s not going to be any state programs that are going to be trying to get COVID jabs to infants and toddlers and newborns,” DeSantis said at a news conference. “That’s not where we’re gonna be utilizing our resources.”
Federal officials believe most parents of young children plan to get their kids vaccinated at their pediatrician’s office, rather than pharmacies or hospitals, and criticized DeSantis for slowing access to the shots.
“Even though Governor DeSantis reversed course and is now ordering vaccines, we will pull every lever to get pediatricians across Florida vaccines as quickly as possible,” Jean-Pierre said. ”This is an encouraging first step, and we urge the state to order vaccines for its state and local health departments, so that all Florida parents have the opportunity to get their children vaccinated.”
Officials said that DeSantis’ decision not to pre-order shots means there’s no stockpile ready to go to be pushed out to the state’s children’s hospitals or doctors on Day 1 of availability.
U.S. regulators on Friday authorized the first COVID-19 shots for infants and preschoolers, paving the way for vaccinations to begin next week.
The Food and Drug Administration’s action follows its advisory panel’s unanimous recommendation for the shots from Moderna and Pfizer. That means U.S. kids under 5 — roughly 18 million youngsters — are eligible for the shots, about 1 1/2 years after the vaccines first became available in the U.S. for adults, who have been hit the hardest during the pandemic.
The FDA also authorized Moderna’s vaccine for school-aged children and teens. Pfizer’s shots had previously been the only ones available for those ages.
There’s one step left: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends how to use vaccines and its vaccine advisers are set to discuss the shots for the youngest kids Friday and vote on Saturday. A final signoff would come from CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
At a Senate hearing Thursday, Walensky said her staff was working over the Juneteenth federal holiday weekend “because we understand the urgency of this for American parents.”
She said pediatric deaths from COVID-19 have been higher than what is generally seen from the flu each year.
“So I actually think we need to protect young children, as well as protect everyone with the vaccine and especially protect elders,” she said.
For weeks, the Biden administration has been preparing to roll out the vaccines. States, tribes, community health centers and pharmacies preordered millions of doses. FDA’s emergency use authorization allows manufacturers to begin shipping vaccine across the country. Vaccinations could begin as early as Monday or Tuesday.
Some parents have been anxiously awaiting the chance to protect their little ones.
While young children generally don’t get as sick from COVID-19 as older kids and adults, their hospitalizations surged during the omicron wave and FDA’s advisers determined that benefits from vaccination outweighed the minimal risks. Studies from Moderna and Pfizer showed side effects, including fever and fatigue, were mostly minor.
The two brands use the same technology but there are differences.
Pfizer’s vaccine for kids younger than 5 is one-tenth of the adult dose. Three shots are needed: the first two given three weeks apart and the last at least two months later.
Moderna’s is two shots, each a quarter of its adult dose, given about four weeks apart for kids under 6.
The vaccines are for children as young as 6 months. Moderna next plans to study its shots for babies as young as 3-months-old. Pfizer has not finalized plans for shots in younger infants. A dozen countries, including China, already vaccinate kids under 5.
Dr. Beth Ebel, professor of pediatrics at University of Washington in Seattle, said the tot-sized vaccines would be especially welcomed by U.S. parents with children in daycare where outbreaks can sideline parents from jobs, adding to financial strain.
“A lot of people are going to be happy and a lot of grandparents are going to be happy, too, because we’ve missed those babies who grew up when you weren’t able to see them,” Ebel said.
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AP Medical Writers Laura Ungar and Carla K. Johnson contributed.
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Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
China on Friday defended its tough “zero-COVID” policy after the U.S. ambassador said it was causing serious damage to the global economy and foreign business sentiment.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said the Chinese economy is recovering from the effects of the pandemic and “facts prove” the policy mandating lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing is “suitable for China’s national conditions and has stood the test of history.”
“We have full confidence that (we can) contain the epidemic, steady the economy and achieve the goal of safe economic development,” Wang said at a daily briefing.
China has sought to completely eliminate outbreaks of COVID-19 with tough restrictions, while most other countries are relaxing their anti-coronavirus measures to “live with” the disease.
Ambassador Nicholas Burns said on Thursday that the “zero-COVID” policy has “had a major impact” on business sentiment, singling out as especially damaging a two-month lockdown in Shanghai, China’s largest city and key financial hub.
Most of Shanghai’s 25 million people were confined to their homes or immediate neighborhoods, and hundreds of thousands continue to remain under restrictions. Rolling lockdowns have also continued to Beijing and other cities.
Critics say the policy is disrupting global supply chains and hurting employment and consumption in China. The U.N.’s World Health Organization has called it unsustainable. China denounced the remarks as irresponsible.
Burns said in a virtual address to the Brookings Institution think tank that there were 40,000 American citizens in the Shanghai area before the pandemic, but that “lots and lots of those people have gone home.” Diplomats from Europe, Japan and other countries report similar declines, he said.
“We’re quite cognizant of the need, I think the Chinese government is quite cognizant of the need, to try to get back to a situation of normalcy,” Burns said.
He said few American companies are leaving China completely because of its continuing importance, “but from the results that I’ve read, and the conversations I’ve had with lots of business leaders here, I think there is a hesitancy to invest in future obligations until they can see the end of this.”
The U.S. and China recorded $650 billion in trade last year, and around 1,100 American companies are operating in China.
Chinese restrictions have all but ended visits by U.S. government officials and business leaders, while the number of American students has dropped sharply since China suspended issuing student visas.
“It’s difficult to convince any of my colleagues in Washington to come here if I tell them that when they do it, they’ve to quarantine for 14 days before they can have a single meeting,” Burns said. “And I understand their unwillingness to do that.”
Burns said the Chinese government is signaling that the “zero-COVID” policy will probably be extended at least into the beginning months of 2023.
Burns, who has declared that relations between Washington and Beijing are at their lowest point since former President Richard Nixon visited in 1972, said China’s aggressive foreign policy has intensified competition between the countries. But he said they still have multiple areas in which they can engage constructively, including on climate change, anti-narcotics measures and agricultural trade.
Burns said much of his job is focused on outreach to the Chinese public, a task made more difficult by COVID-19 restrictions and the government’s strict censorship.
A recent speech on China by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the embassy posted on China’s Twitter-like Weibo social media platform was taken down within about 2 1/2 hours, but drew large numbers of views while it was up, he said.
A second attempt to post it three days later resulted in it being censored within 20 minutes, Burns said.
Thailand is lifting a pre-arrival registration requirement for foreign visitors that was seen as onerous and a drag on the recovery for its ailing tourism industry.
The government’s COVID-19 center also said Friday that an outdoor mask mandate would be dropped as of July 1 except in crowded venues. The mask mandate was not controversial in Thailand and generally obeyed.
Thailand began gradually easing entry requirements late last year. But through April, it still required even fully vaccinated travelers to undergo RT-PCR tests upon arrival and stay in a government-approved hotel for one night until the results were known.
Registering for the “Thailand Pass” required online copies of vaccination documents, insurance policies and other documents to be submitted, after which visitors would receive a QR code for use during travel. The requirement had already been dropped for Thais and will be dropped for foreign visitors on July 1.
The registration process — beset at times by delays and glitches — was seen as discouraging tourists to Thailand, where the lucrative tourism sector was battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
Arriving foreigners must still show proof they have been vaccinated or provide negative COVID-19 test results, the Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration announced. But a requirement to hold an insurance policy has been dropped.
Many countries in Southeast Asia count on tourism as an important source of revenue, and in the past few months have eased their entry requirements.
Thai health officials said Friday 1,967 new cases and 19 deaths related to COVID-19 were confirmed in the previous 24 hours. The country has had more than 4.4 million cases and 30,422 fatalities since the pandemic began.
In an abrupt change of course, the White House is now declining to comment on the frequency of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 testing regimen, even as it maintains that it would inform the public if he were to ever test positive for the coronavirus.
Since Inauguration Day, the White House had frequently answered questions from reporters about when Biden, 79, last tested negative for the virus. Now, the White House says its policy is not to answer those questions.
“I’m telling you he has a regular cadence,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday, refusing to say what day he last tested negative. “I just don’t have a date to share with you, but he does have a regular weekly cadence.”
Following Jean-Pierre’s comments, deputy press secretary Chris Meagher tweeted Thursday that “Our policy is not to readout every test POTUS has taken.”
Biden has often been tested more frequently, either because of close calls with people who have subsequently tested positive for COVID-19 or because of his travel schedule. And the White House had previously been more transparent about Biden’s testing.
“To remain transparent with you and the American people, we wanted to share that the President tested negative for COVID-19 on Monday,” then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last February. “We will venture to provide this update the following day in the future.”
As recently as May 4, Psaki told reporters that Biden tested negative the previous day.
The new, more opaque approach comes as top White House officials have been matter-of-fact about the chances of the president getting COVID, a measure of how ingrained the virus has become in society — and of its diminished threat for those who are up to date on their vaccinations and with access to treatments.
Jean-Pierre said Thursday that the White House would inform the public if Biden were to test positive or if he were to be deemed a “close contact” of someone who tested positive. The White House uses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition of a “close contact,” which is being in the presence of someone with known or suspected COVID-19 for more than 15 minutes, or within six feet of someone with the virus up to two days before they tested positive.
The White House said Biden has never tested positive for COVID-19.
President Joe Biden told The Associated Press on Thursday that the American people are “really, really down” after a tumultuous two years with the coronavirus pandemic, volatility in the economy and now surging gasoline prices that are hitting family budgets.
He said a recession is not inevitable and bristled at claims by Republican lawmakers that last year’s COVID-19 aid plan was fully to blame for inflation reaching a 40-year high, calling that argument “bizarre.”
As for the overall American mindset, Biden said, “People are really, really down.”
“They’re really down,” he said. “The need for mental health in America, it has skyrocketed, because people have seen everything upset. Everything they’ve counted on upset. But most of it’s the consequence of what’s happened, what happened as a consequence of the COVID crisis.”
Speaking to the AP in a 30-minute Oval Office interview, Biden addressed the warnings by economists that the United States could be headed for a recession.
“First of all, it’s not inevitable,” he said. “Secondly, we’re in a stronger position than any nation in the world to overcome this inflation.”
The president said he saw reason for optimism with the 3.6% unemployment rate and America’s relative strength in the world.
“Be confident, because I am confident we’re better positioned than any country in the world to own the second quarter of the 21st century,” Biden said. “That’s not hyperbole, that’s a fact.”
