Dr. Fauci Hopeful The FDA Will Fully Approve COVID Vaccine Within Weeks

Dr. Anthony Fauci is hopeful that the Food and Drug Administration will grant full approval to Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine within a few weeks. The FDA granted an emergency use authorization to vaccines made by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson based on three months of clinical trial data and two months of data on fully vaccinated individuals who participated in the trials.

The agency is also reviewing safety and efficacy data from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, and a decision on approving those vaccines could come several weeks after Pfizer's vaccine is approved.

Dr. Fauci said he hopes that once the vaccines are granted full approval by the agency, many vaccine-hesitant people will get themselves vaccinated.

"I hope — I don't predict — I hope that it will be within the next few weeks. I hope it's within the month of August," Dr. Fauci said. "If that's the case, you're going to see the empowerment of local enterprises, giving mandates that could be colleges, universities, places of business, a whole variety, and I strongly support that. The time has come. ... We've got to go the extra step to get people vaccinated."

As of Sunday (August 8), over 166 million people in the United States over the age of 12 have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, which is over 58% of those who are eligible. Over 194 million people have received at least one dose of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines.