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Their latest trials showed good reactions in adolescents.

I’ve been fully vaccinated for a few weeks now, and I’m pretty happy about it. I don’t feel as scared to be in close proximity of others, and while I’m still choosing to wear my mask in public, I saw a lot of people out shopping and socializing last weekend both with and without them. It finally feels like things are starting to return to some semblance of normal, but we’re not quite out of the woods yet. We still need to ensure that kids are safe from COVID-19, and that means ensuring the vaccines are safe for them.

Moderna has released some new clinical findings that indicate their vaccine, one of the three major COVID vaccines alongside Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, should be safe for adolescents. Their results only just came out and haven’t been peer reviewed yet, so it’ll likely still be a while before Moderna vaccines could be administered to kids between the ages of 12-17, but the results show they’re on the right track.

Moderna vaccine "highly effective" in teens https://t.co/2w6gw9Uaq1

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) May 25, 2021

In the testing phase, which had a sample size of 3,732 adolescents, blood tests showed that every participant had an immune system reaction to the vaccine, similarly to immune responses seen in adults. While the trials were only testing for safety rather than efficacy, it was observed that, two weeks after the second dose of the vaccine, none of the participants exhibited any obvious symptoms of COVID-19, while the control group, who received a placebo vaccine, still got sick. No notable side effects to the vaccine were observed, either. The subjects did still have some side effects such as headache, fatigue, and achy arms, but those are all well within expectations.

Moderna will be sending these results off to be peer reviewed promptly, and are hoping to submit a request to the US Food and Drug Administration for authorization to administer the vaccine to adolescents some time next month.