The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says the current supply shortage will be overcome.
The demand for Covid-19 vaccine doses may outpace supply at the moment, but availability is already looking better for the months ahead, Anthony Fauci said Sunday morning. “The demand clearly outstrips the supply right now,” Fauci told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “If you look at the escalation of availability of doses purely on the ability and the capability of manufacturing, it’s going to escalate and will continue to escalate as we go from February to March to April and beyond.” Fauci also addressed recent arguments suggesting the U.S. should delay the second dose of the vaccine in order to offer more Americans the first shot. Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, who appeared on “Meet the Press” last week, has argued for more research on any issues associated with delaying a second — but Fauci says the existing data supports sticking to the current timetable. “If you want to really study it to see that — the amount of time that it will take, the amount of people you would have to put into the study — by that time, we will already be in the arena of having enough, having enough vaccines to go around anyway.
