Dr. Anthony Fauci says the country's battle with the coronavirus continues to be a "neck and neck" race against time, even as the Biden administration hit its goal of 200 million shots in its first 100 days on Thursday.
The White House’s chief medical advisor and head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases made the comments on KCBS Radio’s "The State of California" on Thursday.
"We’re doing a really, really good job in vaccinating people," Dr. Fauci said.
The U.S. is administering between 3 and 4 million vaccines per day, with about 30% of the adult population fully vaccinated and 50% of the same group having gotten the first shot of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna two-dose vaccines, he added.
An estimated 80% of Americans ages 65 and older have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
However, the country is still reporting about 60,000 new coronavirus infections each week. While that’s down from the height of the crisis, Dr. Fauci remains concerned.
"That will ultimately go down if we continue each day to vaccinate 3 to 4 million people because we’ll reach a point where you will get the majority, and hopefully an overwhelming majority, of people vaccinated which will then create a veil of protection where the virus will continue to come down and down," he said.
The dominant variant in the U.S. is B.1.1.7, or the U.K. strain.
But, as Dr. Fauci noted, "the vaccines work very well against that variant."
"This (B.1.1.7) variant happens to have a characteristic of spreading much more efficiently from human to human, including young kids, than the standard original Wuhan strain," he explained.
The nation’s top infectious disease expert said the best strategy is a two-prong approach: Keep the virus in check with public health guidelines and make it a priority to get more people vaccinated every day.
Variants continue to wreak havoc around the globe, particularly in countries like India and Brazil. Some states, including Texas and Florida, have begun to roll back COVID-19 restrictions ahead of a majority of their populations getting inoculated.
In regard to the ongoing pause of the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine over blood clot concerns, Dr. Fauci told KCBS Radio he thought federal regulators would approve the vaccine for distribution again as soon as Friday, possibly with a disclaimer.
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