President-elect Biden’s Coronavirus Vaccine Goal Is Possible, Says Dr. Fauci, If We Pick Up the Pace

The United States could be administering the coronavirus vaccine at twice the current rate, according to National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Fauci said the U.S. could soon increase the pace of vaccinations, adding there is “no reason” the country couldn’t be administering the vaccine to one million people every day.

According to Business Insider, vaccinating at that rate would put the U.S. on track to meet President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of having 100 million people vaccinated during his first 100 days.

“We are not where we want to be, there’s no doubt about that, but I think we can get there if we really accelerate, get some momentum going, and see what happens as we get into the first couple of weeks of January,” Fauci said.

For example, Fauci pointed out, five million people received the smallpox vaccine during New York City’s smallpox vaccination effort in 1947, according to Business Insider.

“So if New York City can do 5 million in two weeks, the United States could do a million a day,” Fauci said.

Biden has said reaching his goal would require additional funding approval from Congress, according to Business Insider.

Fauci said Britain has indicated a new mutated coronavirus strain — which also has been detected in the U.S. and several other countries — is more contagious but does not make people sicker or lead to more death.

“And it doesn’t appear to evade or elude the protection that you would get from the antibodies that are induced by the vaccines that we’re currently using,” Fauci said. He added the U.S. is also studying the new mutation.

While the current crop of coronavirus vaccine options should be effective against the mutated virus, experts say, the possibility of a more transmissible strain makes a faster rollout of the vaccine more important, according to Business Insider. 

But even at the increased pace, it would still be months before most Americans had received the coronavirus vaccine, Biden said, and it could be “well into March” before the pandemic situation improves. 

Right now, individuals in what Fauci calls “priority groups” are the only ones eligible to receive the coronavirus vaccine. 

However, he said, he hopes that by the end of March or beginning of April, those priority groups would be covered and the U.S. can have what he refers to as “open season” on the coronavirus vaccine, meaning anyone who wants it can get it.

“If from April, May, June, July and August, we do the kind vaccine implementation that I’m talking about — at least a million people a day and maybe more — by the time we end the summer and get to the fall, we will have achieved that level of herd immunity that I think will get us back to some form of normality, and maybe quite normal.”

Do you plan to receive the coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available to you? Why or why not? Let us know in the comment section below.

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