Fauci says three vaccine shots will be routine

During the White House COVID-19 response team briefing on Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said that three vaccine doses would likely be routine, but cautioned that data would first have to be submitted to the FDA before such a determination could be made.

Video Transcript

- Regarding-- [INAUDIBLE] best for Dr. Fauci-- you mentioned the studies in Israel. We've seen the Israeli government require people to get a third dose of the vaccine to be considered fully vaccinated there. Do you expect a similar change in the United States, that a third dose after that eight-month waiting period will be required to be, quote unquote, considered fully vaccinated and enjoy the privileges of the-- the freedoms that provides?

ANTHONY FAUCI: The determination whether something is now constitute fully vaccinated, I will leave that up to the FDA when they get the data on the three doses to make that determination, and then ultimately a recommendation from the ACIP to the CDC so that it's recommended. But I must say, from my own experience as an immunologist, I would not at all be surprised that the adequate full regimen for vaccination will likely be three doses. And the reason I say that is that it's very clear when you give a prime and maybe a second shot as a boost, but give the immune system enough chance to mature in both affinity maturation and maturation of the B cell repertoire, it is entirely understandable why the results that I just reported from the Israeli boosters are so dramatic.

And we all hope, and I believe we have good reason to believe, that that only will not be a strong response, but that it will actually be durable. And if it is durable, then you're going to have, very likely, a three-dose regimen being the routine regimen. But we'll just have to wait to make sure that that's the case when the data get presented to the FDA.