Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, is advising Americans to not wait for certain COVID-19 vaccines to become available before getting inoculated.
“When a vaccine becomes available, take it,” Fauci told Savannah Guthrie during an interview on the “Today” show Thursday.
“This is a race, Savannah, between the virus and getting vaccines into people. The longer one waits on getting vaccinated, the better chance the virus has to get a variant or a mutation,” Fauci said. “So, the sooner we get vaccine into the arms of individuals, whatever that vaccine is … once it gets by the FDA for an [Emergency Use Authorzation], if it’s available to you, get it.”
Fauci’s comments come as the Biden administration seeks to administer 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses within the first 100 days of President Biden’s term.
Roughly 66.5 million coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered thus far in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted emergency use authorization to two COVID-19 vaccines, one from Pfizer and another from Moderna, both two-dose vaccines taken roughly one month apart. Both vaccines have been found to be over 90 percent effective.
Johnson & Johnson has also applied for emergency authorization of its single-dose coronavirus vaccine. The FDA released data on Wednesday affirming that the vaccine is 66 percent effective, which is still above the FDA’s standards.
The agency’s vaccine advisory panel is scheduled to discus Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine Friday, making an approval likely shortly after.