Biden chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday on CNN that changing the definition of “fully vaccinated” to include those who had a booster shot was being evaluated.
Anchor John Berman said, “Now they are encouraging all adults to get boosters. What’s your definition of fully vaccinated?”
Fauci said, “Right now, officially the definition of fully vaccinated is still days is of the Moderna or Pfizer, and one dose of J&J. That’s the requirement when people talk about what is a requirement for this or for that. But that does not actually contradict the fact that we’re saying, as vaccine efficacy wanes, you need to get that booster to bring you right up. We will evaluate as we get more data.”
He added, “We don’t know, now, how long the booster effect is going to last. If it lasts for a considerably longer period of time, meaning the durability of the booster allows you to go for a considerable period of time without getting another booster, in that very well might be determined to be the full vaccination that we talk about. ”
Fauci added, “If it turns out that it wanes again, and you may need an intermission shot, the way we do with influenza, then fully vaccinated will still be the original vaccination, but you may need to update it and upgrade over the years. I hope it’s the former, John. I hope that what we get is a maturation of the immune response that goes well beyond the six months where we’re starting to see the waning now. That’s my hope that we see that. But we will just have to go with the data, not what we hope for. We look at the data and make a determination with the data.”
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