Fauci warns of postponing second round of Covid vaccinations

WASHINGTON – Dr Anthony Fauci, one of the country’s top public health advisers, said on Sunday that the United States should continue to implement its plan to give people the two doses of the currently available Covid-19 vaccines , even as some senior health officials have suggested. that the priority should be to give the first doses to as many people as possible.

There is disagreement among some experts on how to proceed in the face of supply shortages and new variants that may become more resistant to current vaccines or an increase in infections. Dr Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist who has advised President Joe Biden’s transition team on the pandemic, said last week in “Meet the Press” that he believed prioritizing more early doses would put the country on a better track before a possible new push. he compared it to a “hurricane”.

But Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Meet the Press on Sunday that he didn’t think the science was clear on the matter yet, and that investigating whether that path could be better would take too long. .

“What we have right now, and what we need to do, is the scientific data that we have accumulated. And it’s really solid, ”Fauci said.

“You can do both, you can get as many people in their first dose at the same time as you can within reason meet the second dose schedule. It would be great to have this study, but I don’t think we could do it in time.

There has been a drop in daily coronavirus cases and new deaths, according to an NBC News analysis, in recent days after a post-holiday spike. It has been almost three weeks since the number of daily new cases reached 200,000 people. But while new daily deaths have declined overall, the decline has been slower than the decline in cases.

The vaccination rate in the United States has been steadily increasing since the vaccines were first approved in December. As the pace picks up, vaccine distribution and administration suffered from their share of setbacks, and Fauci admitted there was still far more demand than supply.

Fauci said he expects the pace of vaccinations to continue increasing thanks to an increase in the supply of currently available vaccines, as well as new vaccines like that from Johnson & Johnson, which calls on the Food and Drug Administration emergency use authorization. .

“If you look at the escalation in dose availability purely on capacity and manufacturing capacity, it’s going to intensify and continue to intensify as we move from February through March to April and beyond. Even if there is a clear and clear gap between demand and supply, it will improve, ”he said.

While Fauci said some steps could have been taken earlier to alleviate the problems, he admitted it was “a bit inevitable” anyway.

“With all due respect and fairness, it’s kind of inevitable. We certainly could have, I guess, contracted a little more aggressively with the companies to get more doses, but right now that’s what we have. These are the contractual arrangements, they are getting off the line as quickly as possible, ”he said.

“Things will continue to improve.”