As cases are on the rise and hospitalizations are increasing, on the west coast, LA County has re-instated its mask mandate. Here in Ohio Governor Mike DeWine answered whether he's considering a similar move.
"No, no I'm not,” he said. “But there's one way out of this. There's one way out of this. And that's more people get vaccinated.”
A push to get more people vaccinated, as students younger than 12 right now can't get vaccinated yet and are preparing for the school year ahead.
“We're going to give some strong guidance to schools shortly,” said DeWine.
“That's really going to have a big impact on how we manage the back-to-school effort,” said Dr. Iahn Gonsenhauser, Chief Quality and Patient safety officer at OSU Wexner Medical Center.
He said one thing that will help, the FDA announced Friday that it will prioritize the review of Pfizer's vaccine for full use authorization.
“It's very important that we move out of the emergency use authorization and into full FDA approval especially when things like legislation preventing the mandating of vaccines is being passed until we get to that point,” he said.
“I've expressed this to the White House and I'm publicly again [Friday] expressing it to the FDA It's time,” said DeWine. “It's time for you to give full approval. We have lives at stake and we simply cannot wait any longer.
Dr. Peter Marks of the FDA said in a recent call with stakeholders, he expects vaccines to be available for children under the age of 12 by this winter.
The clinical trials of the younger age groups take a longer amount of time than with adults.
“It probably won’t be until the fall or the winter timeline ‘til we see vaccine that’s available, not just under clinical trial, but available for those younger children,” he said.