White House releases plan to vaccinate 28M children ages 5-11: Other developments

White House releases plan to vaccinate 28M children ages 5-11: COVID-19 updates The Biden administration said it has obtained enough vaccine to distribute doses to the nation’s 28 million children ages 5-11 years old. John Bacon, Celina Tebor and Jeanine Santucci USA TODAY

The Biden administration said Wednesday that it has obtained enough coronavirus vaccine and is ready to quickly and equitably distribute doses for the nation’s 28 million children ages 5-11 once federal authorization is obtained.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for 5-11 year olds could win authorization in a couple weeks, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said at a briefing Wednesday. He said 15 million vaccines would then be shipped in the first week alone.

Vaccines for youths will be the focus of the Food and Drug Administration’s independent advisory committee meeting Oct. 26 and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent panel meeting Nov. 2-3. ...

In other developments:

►The Food and Drug Administration may give its OK to administer booster shots that are different from recipients' original COVID-19 vaccine as soon as today, the New York Times reported.

►More than 20 Chicago police officers have been put on "no pay" status for refusing to comply with the city policy of disclosing their COVID vaccine statuses, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said Tuesday.

-- The U.S. has recorded more than 45.1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 728,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Global totals: More than 241.6 million cases and 4.9 million deaths. More than 189.4 million Americans – 57.1% of the population – are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.