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A decision on how to resume vaccination of Americans with the virus Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus shot is likely to arrive on Friday, according to the U.S.’s leading infectious disease specialist, a faster schedule than other health officials have indicated.
Anthony Fauci spoke when the United States reached a vaccination milestone: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Sunday on its website that more than half of people in the United States 18 years of age or older have taken at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine.
“I seriously doubt if they just canceled” the J&J vaccine, one of three approved for use in the U.S., Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told “Meet the Press, “one of four Sunday NBC talk show interviews.
It would be amazing “if we don’t have a resumption in some form before Friday,” he added on CBS’s “Face the Nation”. “One of those possibilities would be to get them back, but do it with some kind of restriction or some kind of warning.”
U.S. health officials paused use of J&J Covid-19 shots while looking for more data on a rare side effect. Six U.S. women who received the shots developed a severe form of blood clotting six to 13 days after vaccination.
On Thursday, public health officials concluded a meeting on the vaccine without vote. CDC advisers said they lack adequate information to make recommendations on how to respond to clot reports.
According to Rochelle Walensky, director of the agency, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will resume on Friday.
“I don’t think we’ll go beyond Friday in extending that break,” Fauci told ABC’s “This Week”.
On Thursday, however, the head of the CDC group, who is expected to make a recommendation on whether J&J’s firing should resume, said more data is needed and that the break could last several weeks.
“If we make a wrong decision in this regard, it will affect our credibility and credibility of the vaccine safety system,” José Romero told Bloomberg News in an interview. “So it’s very important that we do it right.”
The CDC adviser sees potential for a longer pause in the J&J vaccine
Fauci told CBS that any new guidance on the vaccine “could” be based on gender, “but we don’t know yet.” “You don’t want to jump in front of you and assume you know the full spectrum of it,” he said.
The six cases investigated were reported in women between the ages of 18 and 48, raising questions about whether the syndrome mainly affects women or young people in general.
“I think there will probably be some kind of alert or restriction or risk assessment,” Fauci told NBC.
Reinforcement shots
South Africa’s health regulator asked his government on Saturday raises a pause in Johnson & Johnson shots as long as certain conditions are met.
Separately, Fauci, senior adviser to President Joe Biden, said officials will determine “soon” (probably in late summer) whether people who have been vaccinated against Covid may need booster vaccines or new vaccines aimed at emerging countries. strains.
Officials with vaccine manufacturers Modern i Pfizer has indicated that a a booster dose may be needed or Covid vaccines may be turned into annual events, such as flu shots, but NBC’s Fauci said the call would be a “public health decision.”
“It won’t be a decision a pharmaceutical company will make,” he said. “We are partners with them because they supply it. It will be an FDA-CDC decision. “
On CNN, Fauci added that the United States will be ready for coronavirus variants “either increasing with the current vaccine or with a variant-specific vaccine.”
Some 50.4% of people in the United States age 18 or older have had at least one dose of vaccine since the first vaccines were approved in December, the CDC said on its website on Sunday, and 32.5 % of this age group is completely vaccinated.
Among the elderly, who are at higher risk for complications if they take Covid-19, 81% have had a first dose and nearly 66% are completely vaccinated, the CDC said.
The United States should be able to vaccinate children “of virtually any age” before the first quarter of 2022, Fauci told CNN.
– With the assistance of Tony Czuczka and Yueqi Yang
(Updates to the CDC vaccine milestone in the second paragraph.)