Children as young as five are to be offered the bivalent Covid booster vaccine ahead of the winter.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended five to 11-year-olds get a single dose of Pfizer’s updated shot.
Children aged six and above can get Moderna’s bivalent booster. Both new vaccines offer better protection against the new Omicron variants than previous jabs.
Officials are now ‘encouraging’ parents to get their children vaccinated before schools go back from the fall break.
But many experts have repeatedly rallied against plans to inoculate the youngest in society, pointing out they are already at a vanishingly low risk of death.
Official estimates suggest more than eight in 10 children under 17 already have antibodies against Covid – either from a jab or previous infection.
It comes amid a sluggish booster rollout among adults.
Before today’s announcement, just six per cent of Americans 12 and older who were eligible for the bivalent boosters had come forward for one.
