Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci stated on Friday that redefinition of the term ‘fully vaccinated’ in the coming months cannot be ruled out amidst the spread of Omicron or in the event of the emergence of further mutated variants of COVID-19. The statement of US Infectious Diseases expert was made in the wake of the Biden administration’s push for a COVID booster shot.
It has been said that a reconsideration of the meaning and concept of ‘fully vaccinated’ is “certainly is on the table and open for discussion” as the US government advise people to take the booster shots.
As per the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, full vaccination status in the present context meant two weeks after the second shot in two-dose vaccines like Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or a single-dose vaccine like the J&J vaccine. A redefinition of the term would most probably mean making another dose mandatory to consider a person to be fully vaccinated. At present, the additional doses are given as booster doses and they are optional for people.
President Joe Biden’s top medical advisor further said that there was no doubt that optimum vaccination was with a booster dose.
Fauci said that for more protection, he would recommend a booster shot saying, “There’s no doubt that optimum vaccination is with a booster,” adding, “Whether or not the CDC is going to change that, it certainly is on the table and open for discussion. I’m not sure exactly when that will happen. But I think people should not lose sight of the message that there’s no doubt if you want to be optimally protected, you should get your booster.”
Former FDA commissioner and CNBC contributor, Dr. Scott Gottlieb noted that the new variant Omicron spread faster than the earlier threat which was Delta and that people were running out of time. He said, “We know omicron moves very quickly … this variant is going to move much more quickly through the country than delta did, so people who are waiting to get a booster to afford themselves a measure of protection against this variant – time is running out to do that,”
Earlier, CDC director Rochelle Walensky also had talked about redefining the term Fully Vaccinated for Covid-19, indicating making the booster dose a mandatory third dose. “We have not yet changed the definition of ‘fully vaccinated.’ We will continue to look at this. We may need to update our definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ in the future,” she had said.
