“It appears to be very efficient at spreading from person to person,” the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease told CNN’s Chris Cuomo, adding that recent studies show it can be more deadly and cause more serious illnesses.
The UK variant is already on track to become dominant in hotspots like Florida and Southern California “ in a matter of weeks, ” according to a testing company called Helix that has helped identify the bulk of US cases.
The only way to keep the variants from becoming dominant is to prevent them from spreading from person to person by following public health measures and getting as many people vaccinated as soon as possible, Fauci said.
Fauci tweeted Thursday his hope that the data will support coronavirus vaccinations for older children by the end of spring or early summer.
And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that it plans to use the flu vaccine update process as a template for authorizing any changes to coronavirus shots to address the emergence of new variants.
“We have the ability and the ability to try and keep them from becoming dominant,” Fauci said.
New vaccines hope to ease the burden if approved
How fast the variants spread versus the rate of vaccinations will be a key factor in the number of deaths from coronavirus in the coming months, according to the latest forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
New coronavirus vaccines being added to the market can help speed up the vaccination process.
The biotechnology company Novavax announced on Thursday that the “rolling review” process for the authorization of its Covid-19 vaccine is underway in several countries.
The vaccine maker announced it has started the process with several regulatory agencies, including the US FDA, the European Medicines Agency, the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulator, and Health Canada. Rolling review means that the company will submit some completed parts of its application for authorization instead of waiting for the full application to be completed.
And Johnson & Johnson officially asked the FDA on Thursday for an emergency use permit for its Covid-19 vaccine.
The company has developed a single vaccine that the company says could help “reduce the burden of disease for people worldwide and end the pandemic,” said Dr. Paul Stoffels, Chief Scientific Officer at Johnson & Johnson in a statement.
The FDA will schedule a public meeting, and if the agency decides to approve the vaccine, the CDC Committee on Immunization Practices will meet to discuss whether to give the vaccine to Americans and, if so, who should get it first.
The pressure to vaccinate teachers and return to class
With some students approaching nearly a year since they set foot in their class, officials were eager to see a return to personal learning.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has said that with proper spacing, masking, and testing, schools can safely resume on campus even before teachers have been vaccinated. But many states make teacher vaccination a priority.
So far, 24 states and Washington DC now allow some teachers or school staff to receive the vaccine.
In West Virginia, all teachers over 50 who indicated they wanted the vaccine have already received it, said Gov. Jim Justice. In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine has drawn up a plan to have all teachers vaccinated by the end of February, with the goal of all students returning to class by March 1.
Alabama and Colorado will include teachers among those who can be vaccinated starting Monday.
But the availability of doses is still a problem in many states as officials have complained that their allocation of doses does not meet demand.
In some cities, such as Chicago and Minneapolis, officials are at odds with teacher unions and schools because their push to reopen comes with concerns about the safety of staff, students and families. In some cases, tensions have spilled over into lawsuits and threats of strikes.
Fauci is promoting two vaccine doses for those who have been previously infected
Separately, Fauci said on Thursday that even those who have already had Covid-19 should still be vaccinated.
“If you have had Covid-19 you should still get vaccinated. Because reinfection is uncommon 90 days after the initial infection, you can postpone the vaccination until the end of that 90 day period if you wish. But vaccination is still after you. safe. have recovered from Covid-19, ”he said in a tweet.
Although a study earlier this week suggested that people previously infected with coronavirus might only need one injection of Covid-19 vaccines, Fauci pushed back.
The authors of this preprint study, which has not been peer-reviewed, argued that changing policies to give these individuals just one dose “would save them from unnecessary pain and release many urgently needed vaccine doses.”
A previous infection can help kick-start vaccination, Fauci tweeted, but there isn’t enough evidence yet to show that it’s enough for most people to compare with two doses.
“People who had COVID-19 still have to follow current @ FDA guidelines,” he said.
CNN’s Michael Nedelman, Maggie Fox, Andrea Diaz, Jacqueline Howard, Yon Pomrenze, Evan Simko-Bednarski, Elizabeth Stuart and Naomi Thomas contributed to this report.