Americans simply want their freedoms.
Dr. Fauci mentioned in an interview with CNN on Wednesday that it would be inevitable that the definition of “fully vaccinated” against COVID-19 included booster shots.
The infectious disease expert said he was of the opinion that it would “be a matter of when not if.”
According to Federal data, nearly 72% of the U.S. adult population are fully vaccinated for COVID-19. The data means that two weeks have passed since the individual received their second dose of Moderna or Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine, or the same time has elapsed after receiving the single-dose vaccine of Johnson & Johnson.
The CDC recently approved booster vaccine doses for adults who had received their vaccine six months before getting the booster. The announcement authorizing boosters followed evidence that the vaccine efficacy decreases over time.
Now that more of the adult population were opting to get booster doses, the Biden administration was experiencing pressure to update the definition of “fully vaccinated.” The pressure would hopefully end general confusion surrounding the term. Much of the confusion stemmed from the CDCs actions when Director Rochelle Walensky stated in an October press briefing that the agency might need to “update our definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ in the future.” The following month she backpedaled, saying that the CDC wasn’t examining changes to the standard definition.
Fauci’s statements to CNN came mere hours after Pfizer-BioNTech revealed early-stage evidence that booster doses would increase the neutralizing antibody titers 25-fold compared to the first two-dose vaccine. Although the data had not been peer-reviewed when Pfizer-BioNTech presented the data, there were signs that a booster might prevent severe infection from the recently discovered omicron variant.
According to federal data, the tally for U.S. adults who have received a booster dose is nearly 49 million.
