Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday the Pfizer-BioNTech booster shot will likely be approved and ready to be administered the week of Sept. 20.
Dr. Fauci, longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said the shots must receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration, as well as advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before they get the greenlight.
Dr. Fauci said the hope has been that both the Moderna and Pfizer boosters would receive approval from the FDA and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
“It is conceivable that we will only have one of them out, but the other will likely follow soon thereafter,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
He said Pfizer has submitted research data for approval and likely would meet the Sept. 20 deadline.
“We hope that Modiano would also be able to do it so we could do it simultaneously, but if not, we’ll do it sequentially,” he said. “So the bottom line is very likely, at least part of the plan will be implemented, but ultimately the entire plan will be.”
President Biden recently announced a plan to give Americans a booster dose of the Pfizer and Moderna shots eight months after they received their second dose, starting with health care workers and older people who received their first shots back in December.
He said the FDA and CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices must approve the plan. He announced a start date of Sept. 20, raising questions about whether he got ahead of his own health experts.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.