Infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci on Thursday predicted an “open season” for coronavirus vaccinations by April for “anyone” in the general population.
“I would imagine by the time we get to April, that will be what I would call for [a lack of] better wording, ‘open season.’ Namely, virtually everybody and anybody in any category could start to get vaccinated,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a segment of NBC’s Today show.
President Biden’s chief medical adviser, however, cautioned that after that, “it would likely take several more months, just logistically, to get vaccine into people’s arms.”
“By the time we get to April, that will be what I would call open season,” Dr. Anthony Fauci says about the timeline for vaccination availability for all groups to begin getting shots. pic.twitter.com/BMGD3YSVex
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 11, 2021
Residents in many states who aren’t deemed to be high risk have been at the back of the line to receive COVID-19 shots since the immunizations started to get emergency authorizations in the United States late last year. Among those prioritized to get the vaccines are older adults and healthcare personnel.
Fauci estimated that between 75% and 80% of the population will need to procure injections before the country reaches herd immunity.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 65,972,575 doses of the vaccine have been distributed, and of those, 44,769,970 have been administered, equating to roughly 15% of the U.S. population.
Biden’s administration announced a goal of 100 million COVID-19 vaccines before his first 100 days in White House elapse.
“One-hundred million shots is a bold, ambitious goal, but we need to keep going after that,” White House chief of staff Ron Klain said on Jan. 24. “That is our first goal. It’s not our final goal. It’s not the endpoint. It’s just a metric the American people can watch and measure how we are doing.”
