NIAID director says he hopes to see full FDA approval within the coming weeks.
Biden administration COVID-19 advisor Anthony Fauci over the weekend said he hopes CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus vaccines will be fully approved by federal drug regulators in “the next few weeks,” adding in another interview that he believes a “flood” of vaccine mandates will be handed down after that.
With the full FDA approval, it’s likely that more institutions and businesses will begin to issue more vaccine mandates. Currently, vaccines made by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson are under the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use authorization.
Speaking on NBC on Sunday, Fauci, also the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that he hopes that “it will be within the next few weeks” and “within the month of August.”
If the FDA approves the vaccine, Fauci said he believes it will drive more Americans to get the shots. On Saturday, he told USA Today that numerous vaccine-related mandates will be implemented by private entities after the FDA’s approval.
“Organizations, enterprises, universities, colleges that have been reluctant to mandate at the local level will feel much more confident,” he said. “They can say, ‘If you want to come to this college or this university, you’ve got to get vaccinated. If you want to work in this plant, you have to get vaccinated. If you want to work in this enterprise, you’ve got to get vaccinated. If you want to work in this hospital, you’ve got to get vaccinated.’”
In the USA interview, Fauci suggested that more lockdowns will be needed.
Last week, Fauci said in an interview that vaccinated people carry about the same amount of the Delta variant as unvaccinated people.
“When you look at the level of virus in the nasopharynx of people who are vaccinated who get breakthrough infections, it’s really quite high and equivalent to the level of virus in the nasopharynx of unvaccinated people who get infected,” Fauci said during a CBS News segment.
But on Sunday, Fauci stated that he believes the COVID-19 vaccines perform well against the Delta variant, although mainly in protecting an individual from “severe disease.”
