The United States does not plan to change its definition of people vaccinated with the “complete schedule” against COVID-19 for now, despite having recommended that all adults in the country receive booster doses from Pfizer and Moderna.
This was stated this Sunday by the country’s leading epidemiologist, Anthony Fauci, two days after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally gave the green light to the recommendation to supply those third doses of the vaccines.
“We want to follow the science, and right now, if we look at the data that we have, our definition of someone vaccinated on the full schedule is someone who has the original two doses of Pfizer and Moderna, and a single dose of Johnson & Johnson (Janssen),” he said. Fauci in an interview with ABC News.
This definition will also be applied to international travelers who want to fly to the United States: according to the CDC website, for now, the criteria that people vaccinated with the full schedule are those who have received the recommended doses are maintained. originally for each vaccine accepted in the country.
Fauci thus tried to resolve the confusion that had been generated in the country after the recommendation on Friday of the CDC to administer booster doses of Pfizer and Moderna six months after the last prick with those vaccines, and the one in October that requested the immunization with Johnson & Johnson getting a second dose.
The governors of Connecticut and New Mexico have warned that they will not consider a person officially vaccinated with the full schedule if the booster dose has not been given, but Fauci insisted that the White House has no plans, for now, to change that definition at the level. national.
That does not mean that it is not important to take the booster dose to prevent protection against covid-19 and its variants from declining, Fauci qualified, who trusted that now that this measure has been recommended for all adults and not just for some, there is less “confusion” about it.
“There is no longer any ambiguity about (who should wear it), and we really hope that people will use this very important tool to optimize their protection,” he stressed.
The scientific adviser to the president of the United States, Joe Biden, trusted that this booster dose “increases the duration” of protection against covid-19 “so that it is not necessarily necessary to put another one every six months or a year.”
“My hope as an immunologist, as an expert in infectious diseases, is that the maturation of the response, increasing its strength and power, is followed by greater durability. I trust that. If it does not happen, we will act accordingly,” Fauci said.
59% of Americans are vaccinated with the full schedule, not including booster doses, which 17.6% of those who already had previous vaccines have received so far, according to the CDC.