Technologies

FDA committee endorses COVID vaccine for kids ages 5-11: Here’s the latest

If authorized and recommended, shots could be given out to young kids as early as next week. Here’s what to know before your child becomes eligible.

For the most up-to-date news and information about the coronavirus pandemic, visit the WHO and CDC websites.

A panel of independent advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration voted Tuesday to recommended Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to kids ages 5 to 11. The FDA still needs to give the vaccine official authorization, and another independent committee to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will issue guidance next week on how shots roll out, but the vaccine could be available to younger kids soon after that.

Last week, the White House shared a plan to get kids under 12 vaccinated against the coronavirus, saying it «will be ready to begin getting shots in arms in the days following a final CDC recommendation.» In addition to Pfizer’s vaccine being a lower dose for kids ages 5 to 11 (one-third the dose given to everyone else), we may expect the COVID-19 campaign to look different for those in that age group.

Children remain at low risk of severe COVID-19 disease and death compared with the adult population (of states that reported data to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 0.1% to 2% of COVID-19 cases in children resulted in hospitalization). But children can experience complications from COVID-19, including long COVID. According to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, about one-third of parents said they would vaccinate their child age 5 to 11 «right away» after they become eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine.

Although kids age 11 or younger can’t be vaccinated quite yet, teens ages 12 and up can be. While we wait for final recommendations for younger kids, here’s what we know about COVID-19 vaccines for kids.

When will kids be able to get a COVID-19 vaccine?

Kids ages 12 and up are able to get Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. The other mRNA vaccine, Moderna, and the only single-dose vaccine on the US market, Johnson & Johnson, aren’t available for kids yet.

The FDA’s advisory committee met Tuesday and voted on recommending Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11. Pfizer said in September that its vaccine is safe and effective for children in that age group, and members of the FDA’s committee ultimately voted that the benefits of vaccinating younger kids outweighed the risks. If an authorization is formally accepted by the FDA, an independent advisory committee to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet Nov. 2-3 to decide how the shots will be administered to children, and the CDC will need to formally accept its recommendation. Both agencies typically follow the advice of their advisory committees, so we can expect a final decision for kids ages 5 to 11 next week.

Do I need to give consent in order for my young child to get vaccinated?

Yes, parents generally need to consent to their children receiving medical care, which will include Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. This is especially true for younger children.

However, if you have a teenager or child old enough to express a desire to get a COVID-19 vaccine, but their desire is different than yours, they may have legal precedent to seek one out, depending on which state you live in.

In Tennessee, the rights of minors versus their parents when it comes to vaccine decisions came under the spotlight last summer when the state’s vaccine director, Michelle Fiscus, was allegedly fired, in part, for sending out a memo explaining Tennessee’s «mature minor doctrine,» which is the state’s writing on how minors may seek medical care without the consent of their parents in some cases.

If my child is immunocompromised or has a health condition, can they get a booster?

If your child is at least 12 years old, «moderately or severely» immunocompromised and vaccinated with Pfizer, according to the CDC, they should get a third dose of Pfizer. Moderna is only authorized for people aged 18 and older. Examples of people who are immunocompromised include people receiving treatment for cancers in the blood or tumors, organ transplant recipients, stem cell transplant recipients, people with untreated or advanced HIV infection and people taking drugs that could suppress the immune response, per the CDC.

The boosters currently available to some Americans who received Moderna, Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson only applies to adults age 18 or older. No minor is eligible for a booster.

Does Pfizer’s full FDA approval extend to kids?

The FDA’s approval of the vaccine by Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, only applies to people as young as 16 years old. While Pfizer remains the only vaccine authorized for use in kids as young as 12 years old, vaccinating that age group is still under emergency use authorization rather than total approval. This is because, along with other factors, full FDA approval requires data on how the vaccine fares six months out, per NPR. Pfizer’s vaccine was only authorized for kids aged 12 to 15 in May.

This means that a vaccine mandate that hinges on full approval of a coronavirus vaccine, such as the one announced for schoolkids in California, won’t apply to kids younger than 16 for a while.

My child has allergies. Can they get the vaccine?

«If the child has a history of anaphylaxis or other severe allergies, then the observation time after the injection may be 30 minutes instead of 15,» Dr. Anne Liu, an infectious disease specialist with Stanford Hospital and Clinics and the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, said in August. So you might be asked to stick around the waiting room with your child for an extra 15 minutes so health care providers can monitor vaccine recipients for the (extremely rare) allergic reaction that can occur after any vaccination.

Additionally, Liu said, children who are prescribed an EpiPen for any reason should bring it to their vaccine appointment.

If your child has a severe allergy to any of the ingredients in the vaccine available to them, they shouldn’t take it, according to the World Health Organization. Adults allergic to any ingredient a COVID-19 also shouldn’t take that vaccine. Find the ingredients for Pfizer on the FDA fact sheet, as well as Moderna’s components.

Can my child get the COVID-19 shot at the same time as other vaccines?

Yes, according to the CDC, your child may get other vaccines when they go in for their coronavirus shot without waiting 14 days between appointments.

Should I worry about myocarditis?

Myocarditis and pericarditis, or inflammation in the heart, is a rare side effect linked to Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, mostly in adolescent males and young adults. After looking at data and weighing the risks and benefits, the CDC still recommends everyone, including children as young as 12, get vaccinated. According to a Washington Post report, the CDC and FDA are looking into Canadian data that suggests Moderna might carry a higher risk of myocarditis than Pfizer, mainly in young people.

When cases of myocarditis have occurred, Liu said, the cases have typically responded to treatment and resolved themselves, even when patients were hospitalized for a day or two.

«COVID-19 infection can have much more serious consequences for the heart than the vaccine,» Liu said.

The government in Singapore, where 82% of the population is fully vaccinated, recommends that people, especially adolescents and young men, refrain from strenuous exercise for a week after their second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC recommends speaking to a doctor about when to return to sports or exercise following a diagnosis of myocarditis.

If I’m pregnant or breastfeeding, can I get vaccinated?

Yes, according to the CDC, because pregnant people are at much higher risk of severe COVID-19 and complications, including death, than people who aren’t pregnant.

Preliminary data shared by the CDC showed there was no increased risk of miscarriage among those who got an mRNA vaccine before the 20th week of pregnancy compared with those who didn’t.

My child can’t be vaccinated yet. What should we do?

When spending time with other families with children, it’s best if everyone continues to wear a mask, according to Harvard Health, and they should isolate themselves if there’s a COVID-19 exposure. Additionally, choosing more outdoor activities and avoiding crowds, even when outdoors, can help protect your kids. Parents and older siblings who are vaccinated should also mask up to prevent breakthrough infections that can spread to vulnerable people who aren’t as protected, including kids.

The CDC has prioritized in-person learning for students this fall, and it has guidance on prevention strategies schools should use to keep students and staff safe.

Correction, Oct. 25: A previous version of this story included a sentence implying incorrect information about available vaccines for children age 12 and older. Only Pfizer’s vaccine is currently available to kids ages 12 to 17.

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

Technologies

CNET Daily Tariff Price Tracker: I’m Watching 11 Key Products for Changes, Here’s What’s Happened

The deadline for the start of Trump’s heaviest tariffs has been delayed until next month, leaving consumers stuck with more uncertainty over prices.

For the last three months, tariffs have been a hot topic, leaving consumers and businesses alike worried: Will they hike prices and by how much? It’s a question more relevant than ever this week, as President Trump punts another major deadline down the road and price-slashing Amazon’s Prime Day sales wind down as the week ends.

Amid those worries, I’ve been tracking prices every day for 11 key products likely to be hit by tariff-induced price increases, and the answer I’ve come to so far is this: Not so much, at least not yet. The winding road of tariff inflation still stretches before us into an uncertain future, so the threat of price hikes continues to cloud the horizon.

To date, I’ve seen two noteworthy price increases, one for the Xbox Series X and the other for a popular budget-friendly 4K TV. Some other products — including Apple’s popular AirPods and printer ink — have gone on sale for brief periods.

CNET Tariff Tracker Index

Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help give you a sense of the overall price changes and fluctuations going on. Further down, you’ll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked.

We’ll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It’s all in the name of helping you make sense of things, so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET’s guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession.

Methodology

We’re checking prices daily and will update the article and the relevant charts right away to reflect any changes. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled «Now» and showing the current price. For the past months, we’ve gone with what was the most common price for each item in the given month.

In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price-tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple’s official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering of the iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we’ll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause.

The 11 products we’re tracking

Mostly what we’re tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs — along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn’t produced in the US to any significant degree.

The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like printer ink or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists.

iPhone 16, 128GB
Duracell AA batteries, 24-pack
Samsung DU7200 65-inch TV
Xbox Series X
Apple AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C case
HP 962 CMY Printer Ink
Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank
Bose TV speaker
Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook, 256GB
Starbucks 28-ounce ground dark roast coffee

Below, we’ll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting.

iPhone 16

The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes because of its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500.

Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you’ll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. If you, say, buy direct from Apple or Best Buy without a carrier involved, you’ll be charged an extra $30, so in some places, you might see the list price of the standard iPhone 16 listed as $830.

Apple’s been taking a few steps to protect its prices in the face of these tariffs, flying in bulk shipments of product before they took effect and planning to move production for the US market from China to India. A new Reuters report found that a staggering 97% of iPhones imported from the latter country, March through May, were bound for the US. This latter move drew the anger of Trump again, threatening the company with a 25% tariff if they didn’t move production to the US, an idea CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly shot down in the past. This came after Trump gave a tariff exemption to electronic devices including smartphones, so the future of that move seems in doubt now.

Duracell AA batteries

A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you’ll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we’re tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon.

Samsung DU7200 TV

Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if they’re an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET’s pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean company, so it might have some measure of tariff resistance.

After spending most of 2025 hovering around $400, this item has now seen some notable upticks on Amazon, most recently sitting around $450. This could potentially be in reaction to Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs against South Korea this week.

Xbox Series X

Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft’s Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes — the company cited «market conditions» along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that «certain» games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80.

Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US.

AirPods Pro 2

The latest iteration of Apple’s wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales. For most of the year, they’ve hovered around $199, but ahead of Prime Day sales this week they are currently on sale for $149.

HP 962 CMY printer ink

This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around $72 — where it stayed for most of 2025 — to $80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be keeping tabs to see if this is a long-term change or a brief uptick.

This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we’re still tracking that item.

Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank

Anker’s accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET’s lists of the best portable chargers.

Bose TV speaker

Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose. You can currently get this model at a healthy discount for Prime Day, down to $200 from $280.

Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush

They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won’t let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET’s overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025.

While this product hasn’t seen its price budge one way or another most of the year, there is a $10 coupon listed on Amazon right now.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook

Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump’s tariffs.

Starbucks Ground Coffee (28-ounce bag)

Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity —I’m certainly drinking too much of it these days —and because it’s uniquely susceptible to Trump’s tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth’s equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the «Coffee Belt.»

Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season — little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years.

All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs.

Other products

As mentioned, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. Here are some things no longer featured above, but that we’re still keeping an eye on:

Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places — including Amazon — since it released in 2017. Whether that price will be affected by tariffs or the release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X.
Overture PLA 3D printer filament: This is a popular choice on Amazon for the material needed to run 3D printers. It has held steady around $15 on Amazon all year. This product was replaced above by the HP 962 printer ink.

Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven’t been featured with a graph yet:

Razer Blade 18 (2025), 5070 Ti edition: The latest revision of Razer’s largest gaming laptop saw a $300 price bump recently, with the base model featured an RTX 5070 Ti graphics card now priced at $3,500 ahead of launch, compared to the $3,200 price announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump’s tariff plans were ramping up in April.
Asus ROG Ally X: The premium version of Asus’s Steam Deck competitor handheld gaming PC recently saw a price hike from $799 to $899, coinciding with the announcement of the company’s upcoming Xbox-branded Ally handhelds.

Technologies

Download All of Netflix in One Second? Researchers in Japan Just Broke the Internet Speed Record

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for July 12 #496

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for July 12 No. 496.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

If you love attending baseball games in summer, you’ll hit a home run with today’s NYT Strands puzzle. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: In the ballpark.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Play ball!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

TEER, MEER, MEET, TEEM, ROAD, STALL, TALL, BEST, PEAT, LUNH, CULT, BUMP, BILE, PEAL, METE, BULL, STUN, NUTS

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers: