- About half of all USchildren ages 12 and older

have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

Currently, the shots are not available

for younger kids butthat's likely to change.

Former FDA Commissioner ScottGottlieb believes children

5 to 11 could be offered their shots

between Halloween and Thanksgiving.

- Now, the vaccine for kids aged 5 to 11

is basically the same formulationas the current vaccine,

just in a lower dose.

- [Lori] An even lowerdose will likely be offered

to children ages six monthsto four early next year.

When it comes to adults,

Gottlieb says businesses should decide

whether to require workers to get the jab,

adding President Biden's vaccine mandate

may not survive legal challenges.

- A lot of businesses thatwere considering mandates

now might wait because they're gonna wait

to see what the federal government does,

and it's gonna take thefederal government months

to implement this mandate,

if they've ever able to.

And so you might haveactually slowed down the rate

of decision making inthe private community.

- [Lori] He says businessescould consider natural immunity

in lieu of vaccines.

- I think we need to recognizethat people who have immunity

that's acquired through infection,

that immunity is durable,

and it appears quite robust.

I think the question froma clinical standpoint

is how long it's gonna last.

- [Lori] When it comes to the pandemic,

Dr. Gottlieb has reason tobelieve the infamous Delta surge

will be the last one.

Then COVID-19 in the US would transition

to an endemic where the virusbecomes a seasonal pattern

like the flu.

- I think that this might be

the last major wave of infection.

The idea that this is gonnacontinue to mutate very quickly

and all these mutationsare gonna evade our tools,

and this is sort of gonnabe an endless crisis,

I just don't see that.

- [Lori] However, he saysthe US must take action

to stop the next pandemic,

perhaps the bird flu,

which could be right around the corner.

- And I think that thereare things we can do

to prevent this kind of episode

from ever happening again.

- [Lori] In His New Book,"Uncontrolled Spread,"

Dr. Gottlieb recommends fixing mistakes,

such as not being able

to quickly deploy large-scalediagnostic testing,

which could have identifiedasymptomatic cases.

- You'd see a situation where30 people would be in a room,

everyone would be fine

and then 25 peoplewould get the infection,

and so the assumptionwas it must have been

a contaminated surface that 25people came in contact with.

But what actually was happening

was there was someone who wassymptomatic in that setting

who infected the other people.

- [Lori] The CDC, whichusually takes months

to collect, analyze anddisseminate information,

found itself ill prepared

when it came to the need for speed.

- And then when they issued guidance

to try to advise us on howwe should be taking steps

to reduce our individual risk

and how businesses should be taking steps

to reduce their risk,

the guidances oftenweren't very well informed,

they weren't articulated in a way

that they could beactionable by consumers.

- [Lori] Then came the inability

to manufacture firstline of defense drugs,

such as antibody treatments.

- We really didn't have

the adequate manufacturingcapacity we needed

to be able to prepare those at the scale

that was required.

And even now, we haveshortages of those drugs.

They're starting to be rationed again.

- [Lori] And finally, theUS trusted other countries

to admit the emergence of new diseases

within their borders.

- And we've seen time and again,

in a time of crisis, countriesdon't share information.

And we've been fooled many times.

- [Lori] Dr. Gottlieb saysUS intelligence agencies,

like the CIA and the NSAshould expand their missions

to include surveillance ofsuspicious foreign outbreaks.

Lori Johnson, CBN News.