Fauci says some likely to need booster COVID-19 shots

Chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Sunday said it is highly likely that people will need booster shots to give them protection from the coronavirus.

Fauci said that people with compromised immune systems in particularly will likely never have a strong immune response and that the vaccine protection has been shown to attenuate over time.

“Then you get to your question, which is the elderly and others. There’s no doubt that over time you’re going to have an attenuation of protection,” Fauci told NBC “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd.

“If you look at the data from Pfizer — Pfizer shows it went down from the 90s down to around 84 after a few months,” Fauci continued, speaking of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine.

“The recent data for Moderna shows that it isn’t really going down, but everyone assumes, and I think correctly, that sooner or later you’re going to see an attenuation to the point where we’re going to have to give an additional boost to people,” he said. 

He added that booster shots will likely be administered to the elderly and immunocompromised first, as the vaccines were when they were first distributed, noting that it would happen “as soon as the data gets to us.” 

Fauci also said he hopes that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will grant full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine “within the month of August.”

He said he believed that approval from the FDA on a COVID-19 vaccine would lead to the “empowerment” of local entities such as colleges and businesses to issue vaccine mandates.

“No one wants to get ahead of the FDA, because they’re an independent group that makes their decision — then that’s good in many respects because there will never be any concern that we’re influencing them,” Fauci said. “I hope that it will be within the next few weeks. I hope that it’s within the month of August.”