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A decision on resuming the vaccination of Americans with the Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus is likely to arrive Friday, the top U.S. infectious-disease specialist said, a faster timeline than other health officials have indicated.
Anthony Fauci spoke as the US hit a milestone in vaccination: the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on its website Sunday that more than half of people in the US ages 18 and older have now had at least one dose of Covid-19.
“I very seriously doubt they will just cancel the J&J vaccine,” one of three approved for use in the US, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” one of the four Sunday vaccines. interviews with talk shows.
It would be surprising “if we don’t have a resumption in some form on Friday,” he added on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “One of those options would be to bring them back, but with some form of restriction or some form of warning.”
US health officials interrupted the use of the J&J Covid-19 images while looking for more data on a rare side effect. Six American women who received the injections developed severe blood clotting six to 13 days after vaccination.
On Thursday, public health officials closed a meeting about the vaccine without a voice. Advisers to the CDC said they did not have enough information to make recommendations on how to respond to reports of the clots.
According to Rochelle Walensky, the agency’s director, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will resume on Friday.
“I would think that as an extension of this break we don’t go beyond Friday,” Fauci said on ABC’s “This Week.”
On Thursday, the head of the CDC panel was expected to make a recommendation on whether the J&J shooting should resume, that more data is needed, and that the pause could be several weeks.
“If we make the wrong decision about this, it will undermine our credibility and credibility of the vaccine safety system,” Jose Romero told Bloomberg News in an interview. “So it is very important that we do this well.”
CDC advisor sees potential for longer pause from J&J vaccine
Fauci said on CBS that any new guideline on the vaccine could be “gender-based,” “but we don’t know yet.” “You don’t want to be ahead of the curve and assume you know the full spectrum of this,” he said.
The six cases studied have been reported in women between the ages of 18 and 48, raising questions about whether the syndrome primarily affects women or young people in general.
“I think there will likely be some kind of warning or limitation or risk assessment,” Fauci said on NBC.
Booster shots
South Africa’s health regulator asked the government to do so on Saturday take a break from Johnson & Johnson recording, provided certain conditions are met.
Separately, Fauci, a top adviser to President Joe Biden, said officials would “ soon ” – likely by the end of the summer – determine whether people vaccinated against Covid might need booster shots or new vaccines to emerge. tribes.
Officials with vaccine makers Moderna and Pfizer has indicated that a booster dose may be required, or whether the Covid vaccines become annual events like flu shots, but Fauci on NBC said such a call would be a “public health decision.”
“It’s not going to be a decision made by a pharmaceutical company,” he said. “We partner with them because they deliver it. It will be a decision of the FDA-CDC. “
On CNN, Fauci added that the US will be prepared for coronavirus variants “either by boosting with the current vaccine or by boosting with a variant-specific vaccine.”
Some 50.4% of people in the US ages 18 and older have had at least one dose of vaccine since the first injections were approved in December, the CDC said on its website Sunday, and 32.5% in that age bracket have been fully vaccinated.
Of the elderly, most at risk of complications if they receive Covid-19, 81% have had a first dose and nearly 66% have been fully vaccinated, the CDC said.
The US should be able to vaccinate children “of virtually any age” by the first quarter of 2022, Fauci said on CNN.
– With the help of Tony Czuczka and Yueqi Yang
Milestone updates of CDC vaccine in second paragraph.