Dr. Anthony Fauci urges the American Public to take whichever vaccine is most accessible to them.
What We Know:
- Dr. Fauci, Director of the U.S National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said Americans should not compare the vaccines’ statistics. He believes that Americans should take any of the approved three vaccines approved to help combat the spread of the Virus. “All three of them are really quite good, and people should take the one that’s most available to them,” said Fauci in an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press.
- The only vaccines currently available as of late are the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson. Fauci stated that the vaccines all differ in dosage, and the vaccines were all tested under different circumstances. One example is that Johnson and Johnson is a one-shot dosage, while Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna require two-shots.
- According to Fauci, public health officials have recently been very concerned about the virus’s variants that could dodge the vaccines. One variant is B.1.351, which is spreading like wildfire in South Africa. This also serves as a reason why Fauci advises that Americans shouldn’t be comparing the efficacy rates of the virus. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine has a 72% efficacy rate in the U.S, compared to 64% in South Africa.
- Fauci also noted on Meet The Press that the United States has started to see a decline in the number of infections due to COVID and has seen an increase in the number of vaccinations. Fauci urges that we still must stay resilient in combating the virus and that we are nowhere close to lifting restrictions because there is a chance that lifting restrictions will cause another spike.
We are approaching the anniversary of the COVID-19 being declared a National Emergency. However, this news from Fauci might be enough to give the country hope of returning to what we deem as “normal.”
