Johnson & Johnson vaccine should not be avoided for others, Fauci says
"This is a good vaccine," Dr. Anthony Fauci said of the Johnson & Johnson shot in appearance Sunday on ABC's "This Week." Credit: AFP via Getty Images/SAUL LOEB
As the United States prepares to distribute a third coronavirus vaccine, the nation's top infectious disease specialist on Sunday urged Americans to get vaccinated with whatever dose is available as quickly as possible.
On Saturday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, which requires just one shot.
The approval is expected to vastly expand the supply of coronavirus vaccines. So far, the U.S. has been able to administer two-shot vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
"These are three highly efficacious vaccines," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN's "State of the Union." He added: "If I were not vaccinated now, and I had a choice of getting a J&J vaccine now or waiting for another vaccine, I would take whatever vaccine would be available to me as quickly as possible."
A single dose of J&J's vaccine was effective against 85% of severe COVID-19 illness, according to the FDA, which cited a study that spanned three continents. Protection was strong in South Africa, where a new and more powerful variant is spreading.
The dose was 66% effective when moderate cases were factored in. Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines were 95% effective against symptomatic COVID-19, according to earlier studies.
Experts caution against using the data to make direct comparisons among the vaccines because trials were conducted at different times. Earlier trials may not have accounted for global variants, which are now more widespread.
Johnson & Johnson said it can deliver 20 million shots by the end of March and 100 million by the end of June.
Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Fauci said if Americans were thinking of waiting for Pfizer or Moderna's vaccines, "we've got to get away from that chain of thought."
"This is a good vaccine. I think we need to pull away from this comparing and parsing numbers until you compare them head to head. Just be really grateful that we have three really efficacious vaccines."
Fauci, who made the rounds on the major networks and cable programs, also tried to predict when elementary and teenage children could be vaccinated. High school students could be vaccinated by the fall, he said.
"If you project realistically when we'll get enough data to be able to say that elementary school children will be able to be vaccinated, I would think that would be at the earliest the end of the year and very likely the first quarter of 2022. But for the high school kids, it looks like sometime this fall. I'm not sure [it'll] exactly be on the first day the school opens, but pretty close to that."
Also Sunday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki addressed negotiations over President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, which lacks Republican support.
"What this proposal is going to address is how we're going to help people bridge through this period of time, get them direct checks, reopen schools, get more vaccines in the arms of Americans," Psaki said on CNN's "State of the Union."
She continued: "We have not seen a substantive, big proposal in response back from Republicans. This is the scope of the problem and the scope of the kind of package that needs — we need to pass to address that."
Psaki said Biden was willing to consider some of the Republicans' proposals.
"There's been more targeting of the direct checks. He has not been willing to negotiate on the size of the checks, but there has been a targeting to ensure that it hits the Americans who need that help the most," Psaki said. "That's an idea that has come up in meetings with Democrats and Republicans. And he's certainly open to hearing from their ideas. What he will not do, though, is make this a Washington, political, partisan issue and prevent the American people from getting the relief they need."
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said Biden should "start off with more bipartisan measures, so that we don’t poison the well, so that we can continue to work together. And in this case, it would be very easy to get Republican support for a COVID relief package."
Scott Eidler is a deputy editor for the towns department at Newsday. Scott has worked at Newsday since 2012 and previously covered municipal government and education.
