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By Alex Guerrero

There are vaccines for the elderly, for children 5 to 12, for teenagers and anyone in-between. But not for one of the most vulnerable populations, children newborn to 4.

And even though the numbers suggest that age range isn’t the hardest hit, Freeborn County Public Health Director Sue Yost suggested the numbers could be misleading.

“The [children] that are on our list are only the ones that are tested and confirmed,” she said. “We don’t know who is home-testing their children. We don’t know who, if the parent tested positive, … just assumed the baby or child under 4 has it. We don’t know all those reasons.”

Another reason for parents not testing their young children is because testing could appear traumatizing to infants.  

But even if the numbers within the county suggest otherwise, it’s always better to be safe than sorry, and scientists are currently developing vaccines for that age range.

“They’re definitely working on it,” Yost said. “There is a vaccine that [Pfizer] is in the process of testing and working on researching to determine how many doses of the vaccine and the efficacy of it.”

Yost said Pfizer had previously put in a request to the Food and Drug Administration to have a vaccine for that age group approved, but withdrew that request last week to do more research and resubmit the application. 

“I believe that they’re researching to figure out what the efficacy of the dosages are, if they need to do two doses or three doses and how far apart they need to be so they can make sure that children can have proper coverage,” she said.  

Yost said she thinks Pfizer would still have a vaccine ready for the youngest age group sometime this spring. She defined the age range as children 6 months to 4 years.

She said the reason it was taking longer was the same reason why it took almost a year to develop a vaccine in the first place: It takes time to study the different age groups and determine what — if any — modifications need to be made in terms of dosage amount and frequency.

To date, Moderna is still waiting for approval on a vaccine for those 12 to 17 years old.