Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday said the US is a “few weeks away” from receiving data on the effectiveness of booster shots for the Moderna and Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccines.
“We are definitely paying strong attention to both the J&J [recipients] and those who received a Moderna [shot]. And the actual data that we’ll get [involving] that third shot for the Moderna and second shot for the J&J is literally a couple to a few weeks away,” Fauci told NBC anchor Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.”
In a separate interview with ABC’s “This Week,” the White House chief medical adviser predicted that the data would be available in two to three weeks.
“We’ll be examining it in the same manner as we did with the Pfizer data,” Fauci told anchor Martha Raddatz.
The Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel has recommended a third Pfizer dose for Americans over age 65 and those at high risk of severe infection — but rejected a plan Friday to administer the booster to all age groups.
The panel said more data is needed before it can greenlight boosters for people ages 16 and older and that the two-dose Pfizer regimen is still highly protective against the spread of the Delta variant for most people.
Still, Fauci said that he expects the committee to revisit the prospect of Pfizer boosters for the general population after more data becomes available — including from Israel, where they’ve made a third dose available to most age groups.
“I could predict with some confidence that three, four weeks from now, as we get more data from the Israelis and more data from our own United States cohorts, that there will be a continual reexamination of that data,” Fauci said.