Fauci says new vaccines could be ready for possible approval within weeks, earlie holdback statements were a misunderstanding

Fauci says new vaccines could be ready for possible approval within weeks, not months Amid frustration and delays of administering current vaccines, Fauci said President-elect Biden's goal of 100 million doses in 100 days is achievable. NBC News

WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the nation’s foremost public health experts, said Sunday that the U.S. is “weeks away, not months away” from considering the approval of new coronavirus vaccines.

In an interview on NBC News' "Meet the Press," Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who will be staying on as President-elect Joe Biden’s chief science adviser, said he was optimistic that the vaccine candidates being made by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca can be fully evaluated soon.

"I would imagine within a period of a week or so, or at the most, a couple of weeks, they're going to be getting their data together and showing it to the FDA,” Fauci said of the two pharmaceutical companies.

“They're going to have to get their data and safety monitoring board to look at it to see if it is appropriate to start, you know, essentially putting the package together to get an emergency use authorization. But we're weeks away, not months away, for sure."

The Food and Drug Administration has already approved two vaccines, from Moderna and Pfizer, for emergency use. While both those approved vaccines, as well as the one being developed by AstraZeneca, require two shots spaced out weeks apart, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine needs only one.

There have been almost 14 million vaccinations in the U.S. so far, according to data from Bloomberg News. The pace of vaccinations continues to increase, with more than a million people vaccinated on three days last week.

But there have been concerns about the pace of the vaccine rollout, with widespread frustration about supply, state guidelines and appointment availability. Amid that backdrop, the Trump administration recommended last week that all states should allow anyone 65 and older, as well as those with some underlying health conditions, to receive the vaccines, instead of using more stringent criteria.

He said that there had been a “misunderstanding” about initially wanting to hold back supply of the vaccine to be sure that everyone who received a first dose was able to get a second one. But now that the supply appears “consistent and reliable,” Fauci said that those doses don’t need to be held back. ...

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