Dr Fauci says COVID-19 vaccine may only be 50 PERCENT effective and US ‘must never abandon the public health approach’
DR Anthony Fauci said on Friday that the chances of scientists creating a highly-effective vaccine to combat COVID-19 are slim.
“The chances of it being 98 percent effective is not great,” Fauci said at a Q&A with the Brown University School of Public Health in Rhode Island.
Fauci said scientists are hoping for a coronavirus vaccine that is at least 75 percent effective, but 50 percent or 60 percent would be acceptable.
“Which means you must never abandon the public health approach,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases explained.
“You’ve got to think of the vaccine as a tool to be able to get the pandemic to no longer be a pandemic, but to be something that’s well controlled.”
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said it would authorize a coronavirus vaccine as long as it is safe and at least 50 percent effective.
FDA Commissioner Dr Stephen Hahn said last month that the vaccine or vaccines that end up getting authorized will prove to be more than 50 percent effective.
He added that it’s possible the US could end up with a vaccine that, on average, reduces a person’s risk of a COVID-19 infection by just 50 percent.
“We really felt strongly that that had to be the floor,” Hahn said on July 30, adding that it’s “been batted around among medical groups.”
“But for the most part, I think, infectious disease experts have agreed that that’s a reasonable floor, of course hoping that the actual effectiveness will be higher.”
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Meanwhile, a Gallup poll released on Friday found that one in three Americans wouldn’t take a vaccine if it were available today.
Conducted July 20 to August 2, the poll asked 7,632 US adults: “If an FDA-approved vaccine to prevent coronavirus/COVID-19 was available right now at no cost, would you agree to be vaccinated?”
Only 65 percent answered that they would, leaving 35 percent saying they would not.