Drop in confidence raises new risks and a vaccine for kids probably isn't coming in 2021
The UMich survey data is spotty but everyone needs to consider the potential impacts of delta, especially with US ICUs filling up and reports of kids filling up beds.
The elderly getting sick is one thing, kids are another. Some reports also highlight how quickly delta is ripping through schools. I remember the same kinds of stories last year and they turned out to be an exaggeration so lets hope that's the case again.
The worst case scenario is that kids are getting really sick and schools close again. That's certainly the kind of thing to break the will of struggling parents but it might not be entirely dire.
The Atlantic writes about the timeline for vaccines for the younger cohort:
A Pfizer spokesperson told me that the company plans to submit an EUA application for the 5-to-11-year-old group "by the end of September," and for the six-month-to-5-year-old group "shortly thereafter." Then the FDA will take the reins. After this article was published, a Moderna spokesperson told me that the company's full data set will likely be ready "later this year or towards the very beginning of 2022," and that information on different age subgroups might be available at different (as yet unspecified) times.The FDA has been saying since May that it expects vaccines to be available for kids under 12 on a "fall or winter timeline."
Reading the story though, it suggest something like a three-month timelag to submit an emergency authorization request after companies stop recruiting test volunteers, followed by a one-month lag to approve it. Since they're still taking recruits, late December is probably the best we can hope for.
The market has been remarkably good at looking through covid and I expect that it can do the same with a Fall wave in schools, though it will probably take some pain to get there.
