Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Wednesday that getting vaccinated against COVID-19 does not give people a “free travel pass,” as health officials announced the full vaccination of just 3.8 million Americans and hundreds were seen lining up to receive the blow at the hot California Dodger Stadium.
The nation’s top infectious disease expert appeared on a CNN Global Town Hall, hosted by Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, when he answered the viewer’s question about when immunity begins after receiving the vaccine.
Retired nurse Carole Gardner told Fauci that she and her husband have not been able to travel to see their grandchildren. She explained that she and her husband will receive the second dose of the Modern vaccine on February 19th.
“When will we have immunity and when will we be able to travel?” Gardner asks.
In response, Fauci said, “Maximum immunity starts between ten and two weeks and later after the second dose … This would provide you with 94-95% efficacy and a good safety profile.”
Still, Fauci warned that “it’s not a good idea to travel, period and point.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Wednesday that getting vaccinated against COVID-19 does not give people a “free travel pass.”
On Wednesday evening, drivers were still in line for COVID-19 vaccinations and testing in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
“We don’t want people to think because it was vaccinated that other public health recommendations don’t apply,” he continued.
“So getting vaccinated doesn’t mean I have a free pass to travel, nor do I have a free pass to set aside all the public health measures we talk about all the time,” Fauci said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of motorcyclists were seen queuing Wednesday evening to be vaccinated at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, which was a huge success. More than a million cases have been reported in Los Angeles County and at least 15,897 people have died.
His statements came just a day after Johnson and Johnson announced they would likely release the results of phase three trials of their one-week coronavirus vaccine next week.
Its vaccine is cheaper and easier to store and transport, which, along with the fact that it only requires one dose, could help speed up the spread of the vaccine in the United States.
The 100 million doses Johnson & Johnson has promised in the U.S. would increase U.S. supply by about 25%.
President Joe Biden’s own response team to President COVID-19 admitted, however, that it will be months before anyone who wants a vaccine can get one and that “we will run into unforeseen problems” during the launch, he said. interim administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Andy Slavitt.
Earlier Wednesday, drivers were seen waiting in line at the mega COVID-19 vaccination site that was set up in the Dodger Stadium parking lot.
Vaccinations began five weeks ago, but only 6.2% of the U.S. population has obtained the first doses of two-dose vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna. This means that about 20.7 million have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 3.8 million people have been completely vaccinated.
It comes when the death toll in the United States rises to 428,654, including 3,990 deaths. More than 25 million Americans have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic.
Encouragingly, cases, deaths and hospitalizations fell last week compared to previous weeks, but remain high with an average of 3,287 people dying a day.
Dozens of precious doses of the two vaccines have been wasted because no one could be found to take them before they were damaged, or by careless mistakes such as thawing the freezers.
The simplest single-dose shot of Johnson & Johnson could be a great help in solving some of these problems. It has a contract with the United States for at least one million doses and has pledged to distribute one billion doses worldwide this year.
About 20.7 million have received at least one dose of the vaccine. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 3.8 million people have been completely vaccinated.
Fauci said the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is being tested in the highly infectious “supercovid” variants of South Africa and Brazil.
But even if its results are positive, the FDA is not expected to eliminate the vaccine for emergency use until March, raising questions about why an agonizing delay should occur for a month.
Biden, meanwhile, has attacked its COVID-19 vaccination target and announced Monday that it believes the U.S. could administer more than 1.5 million vaccines a day, up from one million.
The US currently vaccinates an average of 1.27 million people a day. Supply could be the main obstacle to achieving and maintaining Biden’s goal of vaccinating 1.5 million people a day.
Collectively, Moderna and Pfizer have pledged to supply 200 million doses by the end of March.
More than 25.5 million infections have been reported in the U.S. since the beginning of the pandemic
Pfizer believes it can offer an additional 20 million doses by then and the United States is in talks with Moderna and Pfizer to buy 200 million more doses (100 million each), which will be available this summer.
But there is no stock. The federal government withholds sufficient supply to cover doses for two to three days in the event of manufacturing alterations.
Otherwise, it relies on manufacturers to maintain a steady stream of new doses in the state, Slavitt said.
He said the government “trusts” these manufacturers, but even he admitted that there will likely be production disruptions, and the government is only planning a thin pillow in the midst of a deployment that has so far been chaotic and has left many states on the verge of no dose.