AUSTIN (KXAN) -- On Wednesday, Pfizer announced its coronavirus vaccine has proven to be 100% effective in preventing illness in children ages 12 to 15 during clinical trials.
More than 2,200 children in that age group have participated in the Pfizer trial, and 98 of them did so through the Austin Regional Clinic, which is participating in the study.
"Judging from the response of parents bringing their children in for these covid-19 trials, there's a lot of excitement," said ARC Chief Medical Information Officer and internal medicine physician Dr. Manish Naik.
He says more families signed up their children than ARC could even enroll.
For those parents who may still be skeptical, however, Naik says the data looks promising that the Pfizer vaccine is proving safe for kids.
"There's not anything about the mechanism of how these vaccines work that should raise a bigger concern in children than they do in adults," Naik explained.
He says the FDA will still have to study those findings, but he expects that at the least, older children could be offered a vaccine in time for the 2021-22 school year.
Those are the kids local health leaders say need it most. Austin Public Health data shows last week, the coronavirus positivity rate among local middle school students was 6.4%, and for high school students, it was 7.9%, both notably higher than the area's overall positivity rate of 4.3%.
Pfizer plans to request emergency use authorization for the vaccine in kids ages 12 to 15 in the coming weeks, meaning it could be available to that age group in the summer.
"It gives us enough time to ramp up vaccination, to reach those groups, to make it much safer in the fall for the return to more regular, in-person education," said Austin-Travis County Interim Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott.
For kids younger than 12, vaccine trials aren't as far along, Naik says. Escott explained in a briefing Wednesday that researchers still need to figure out the exact dosage needed for smaller children.
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