Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House Chief Medical Advisor, said that he would take the newly authorized Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine. He also advised Americans to take whichever authorized jab is available.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the vaccine of J&J, giving the United States a third tool to combat the pandemic following vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
According to a CNBC report, the company is expecting to deliver about 20 million doses by the end of March. All three vaccines, Fauci said during the 'Meet the Press' of NBC, are really quite good and the one that's most available should be taken by people.
The health official added, if one goes to a place and there's J&J vaccine, and that's the one available at present, then, he would take it.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, prepares to receive his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the National Institutes of Health.
Three COVID-19 Vaccines
He added that there is a need for people to get vaccinated as fast and expeditiously as possible.
This news report specified that J&J vaccine is different from other vaccines since it is a single-dose regimen and it does not necessitate patients to go back for their second dose.
Said vaccine can be stored for months at refrigerator temperatures. More so, the shot has presented 66-percent overall efficacy. It also showed 72 percent percent efficacy in the US and 57 percent in South Africa, which has seen a fast transmission of the B.1.351 strain.
Even though the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna presented higher efficiency rates in trials with two doses against the single dose of J&J, Dr. Fauci insisted that this J&J vaccine is not a weaker shot.
He also claimed that trial data should not be compared for the three shots as they were tried at different times. He elaborated that there are now have three highly-effective vaccines, for sure, and there is no doubt about it.
Urging More People to Get Vaccinated
While the country is seeing a drop in new COVID-19 cases, not to mention, an improvement in the vaccination rate, Fauci cautioned states not to loosen the pandemic restrictions too early -- a move which could result in another surge in contagions.
Cases have fallen from 300,000 every day to approximately 70,000, a starting point that, according to this health expert, remains too high. He added that they do not want to continue to stop people from doing what they want to do.
However, he explained to CBS's 'Face the Nation,' as seen on the program's YouTube video below that infection rate should go down to a good level and urged many more people to get vaccinated. And then, he added, one could relax public health measures.
But at present, the health expert continued, as the numbers are going down and plateauing, it is not yet the right time to declare triumph or victory.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said, people may have been done with the virus but clearly, it is not done infecting them.
The CDC official added, people cannot get comfortable or give in to an untruthful sense of security that the worst of this global health crisis is behind us. Not now, she emphasized, not when mass vaccination is quite close.
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