Clinical COVID-19 vaccine trials started for children

Children and the COVID-19 vaccine

As millions of Americans wait to get their coronavirus vaccine, they're still not available for children, as kids were not part of the initial vaccine trials.

WASHINGTON (FOX 5 DC) - As millions of Americans wait to get their coronavirus vaccine, they're still not available for children, as kids were not part of the initial vaccine trials.

The U.S. has started clinical trials for adolescents as young as 12 years old – although they're much smaller than the 30,000 participants we saw in the adult trials.

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While children may not fall ill to COVID at the same rate as adults, they can still spread the virus and getting them vaccinated will be critical to achieving herd immunity.

FOX 5's Shirin Rajaee sat down with infectious disease physician Dr. Wilbur Chen from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in the video above.