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- In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Moncef Slaoui, director of the federal vaccine initiative Operation Warp Speed, said Moderna’s vaccine “would likely be approved on Friday.”
- On Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the two-dose vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech for emergency use.
- Slaoui repeated his prediction that he expected 100 million people to be immunized by the first quarter of next year, and said he expected around 14 million doses of vaccines to be distributed before the end of 2020.
- Slaoui said the US plan for a vaccine works with “a portfolio of products” and that there would “very likely” be no cause for concern over a shortage of supply of the vaccine in the spring.
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Moncef Slaoui, chief scientist for federal vaccine initiative Operation Warp Speed, said Sunday that Moderna’s vaccine will likely be approved next week.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Slaoui told host Chris Wallace that with the approvals behind the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, he expected around 40 million doses of vaccines to be distributed by the end of 2020.
Slaoui added that “we expect to have immunized 100 million people, which would be people in long-term care facilities, older people with comorbidities, frontline workers, health workers” by the first quarter of 2021 .
On Friday, the US Food and Drug Administration authorized the two-dose vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech for emergency use. Moderna applied for emergency use authorization after reporting a 94.5% efficacy rate in its late-stage clinical trial.
The New York Times reported last week that the Trump administration had missed an opportunity in the summer to secure additional doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, raising concerns about whether the US will be able to secure a sufficient supply of vaccines. amidst the pharmaceutical company’s commitments to many. other countries.
When pressed by Wallace on whether there would be a possibility of a vaccine supply shortage in the spring, Slaoui replied “most likely not.”
Slaoui said the US plan for a vaccine works with “a product portfolio” of multiple vaccines. Among them would be Moderna’s vaccine, which he said “would probably be approved by Friday, probably next week” and “is capable of producing 100 million doses in the first quarter.”
As vaccines are distributed, public health officials, including Slaoui, have expressed concern about Americans’ reliance on the vaccine as a potential obstacle to achieving widespread immunity.
A November Pew Research Center poll found that despite an increase in general public confidence in the vaccine between September and November, 39% of those surveyed said they would definitely or probably not receive a coronavirus vaccine if it were available today.
Some data has shown that some of the public’s skepticism about the vaccine stems from concerns about political interests in the US pandemic response.In a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation between late August and early September, the 62% of adults in the US responded that they are “concerned that political pressure from the administration of President Donald Trump will lead the FDA to rush to approve a coronavirus vaccine without making sure it is safe and effective.” .
“Unfortunately, there is so much politics in the context of the development of these vaccines that there has been confusion between how thorough, scientific and factual is the work that has been done,” Slaoui told Wallace on Sunday. “[And] the perception that people think we take shortcuts or something like that – I can guarantee you that such things have not happened, that we follow science. “
