Dr Fauci declares April ‘open season’ for COVID-19 vaccinatoins

Dr Anthony Fauci has predicted that any American who wants one will be able to get a coronavirus vaccine by April. 

‘By the time we get to April, that will be what I would call, for better wording, “open season,” namely, virtually everybody and anybody in any category could start to get vaccinated,’ Dr Fauci said during a Thursday Today show interview.  

‘Hopefully as we get into the middle and end of the summer we will have accomplished the goal of…the overwhelming majority of people have gotten vaccinated.’

So far, the US has vaccinated about 10.5 percent of its population. About 10 million people have received both doses and 1.6 million shots are being given a day. 

Dr Anthony Fauci predicted that any US adult who wants one will be able to get a COVID-19 vaccine by April, and that the majority of Americans will be vaccinated by fall 

At its current pace of vaccinating 1.6 million people a day, Biden officials fear it will take nine months for the US to give shots to 75% of its population and reach herd immunity 

At that rate, it will take nine months for the US to each herd immunity, but Dr Fauci has remained optimistic about the timeline. 

He credited the forthcoming uptick in vaccine doses available from Pfizer and Moderna and potentially from other firms like Johnson & Johnson, whose vaccine is expected to be authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the coming weeks. 

The US is also now shipping vaccines directly to pharmacies and will start shipping them to community health centers.   

Although their shipments have been stable for the past several weeks, according to CDC data, Moderna and Pfizer are expected to have more doses ready to ship in the  coming weeks. 

The Biden administration is also in talks with other companies to co-produce the shots. 

Once more vaccines are available the US will be able to take ‘much more of a mass vaccination approach,’ Dr Fauci said. 

Already, the US is starting to launch these large scale sites. Two additional sites opened in New York City this week, and three are set to open in Texas.  

The US is on target to hit President Biden’s goal of more than 100 million vaccines administered in his first 100 days in office, a milestone which will come in April. 

But he admitted in a CBS News interview that it will be ‘very difficult to reach herd immunity much before the end of the summer.’ 

Members of Biden’s COVID response team are warning the White House that even that may be unrealistic, two senior officials told the Daily Beast. 

Driving their less optimistic timelines for herd immunity are the potential fragility of the vaccine supply chain and the emergence of more infectious coronavirus variants, including two that may make vaccines less effective. 

 At the current clip, it will take about nine months for 75 percent of the population to get vaccinated, at which point the nation will likely have herd immunity that reduces the circulation of the virus low enough that unvaccinated people are unlikely to get infected. 

But that is dependent upon how many doses Moderna and Pfizer can make of their authorized vaccines, though the supply could get a 100 million dose boost if Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose shot is approved.