NEW YORK (WBEN) — American’s who have received the two-shot Moderna vaccine may have to wait a little longer for their booster shot, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Moderna’s booster may not be ready by Sept. 20, the date the Biden administration set to begin deploying the shots for vaccinated adults, according to President Biden’s chief medical adviser.
“We were hoping that we would get both the candidates, both products, Moderna and Pfizer, rolled out by the week of the 20th,” said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “It is conceivable that we will only have one of them out, but the other will likely follow soon thereafter.”
Fauci said Moderna might not complete its data submission for the appropriate FDA regulatory approval on boosters by the deadline for a Sept. 20 rollout — though any delay for Moderna boosters would likely be small.
“Looks like Pfizer has their data in, likely would meet the deadline. We hope that Moderna would also be able to do it so we could do it simultaneously, but if not, we'll do it sequentially,” Fauci went on.
“So the bottom line is very likely, at least part of the plan will be implemented, but ultimately the entire plan will be,” he added.
Fauci and other federal officials announced this summer that vaccinated adults will need to get a booster eight months after second shot, setting up the Sept. 20 date for the earliest recipients, like health care and other essential workers and the elderly.
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A Moderna rollout, if delayed, would likely come weeks after Pfizer’s, according to Fauci.
“I think it's going to be at the most a couple of weeks, a few weeks delay, if any,” he said.