After FDA approval of Pfizer vaccine, several steps still left before kids under 12 can be vaccinated Parents may be wondering what the FDA's grant of full approval to Pfizer's vaccine means for children who aren't authorized to get vaccinated. NBC News

The Food and Drug Administration’s decision to grant full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s two-dose Covid-19 vaccine Monday for people ages 16 and up is a pandemic milestone, but parents may wonder what it means for their young children who still aren’t authorized to get vaccinated.

While Monday's approval doesn’t cover young people ages 12 to 15, they can still get the Pfizer vaccine through emergency use authorization.

No Covid vaccines have been authorized or approved for use in children under 12. Emergency use authorization for younger children is expected in the fall or winter. But several steps need to be taken first, including the completion of clinical trials. ...

Dr. Peter Marks, the director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a video news conference Monday that trials for vaccines for children continue and that the agency “has to wait for the company to submit the data from those trials so that we have a good safety dataset, because we certainly want to make sure that we get it right in the children ages 5 through 11 and then even in younger children after that.”   ...

ALSO SEE: Pediatricians say it's a 'no-no' to vaccinate children under 12 against COVID-19