As more Americans are vaccinated, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says new guidelines for vaccinated people will be coming \u201csoon\u201d from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
\n\u201cI believe you\u2019re going to be hearing more of the recommendations of how you can relax the stringency of some of the things, particularly when you\u2019re dealing with something like your own personal family when people have been vaccinated,\u201d Fauci told CNN.
\nSome changes for those vaccinated have already been published. For example, people who have been vaccinated do not need to quarantine if they come in contact with an infected person.
\nThe supply of vaccines is expected to grow as manufacturers say they will increase production, CNBC reported.
\nIn written congressional testimony, Pfizer\u2019s Chief Business Officer John Young said the company plans to double its output to 13 million doses per week by mid-March.
\nModerna hopes to deliver 40 million doses per month by April.
\nThe supply could be further bolstered by Johnson & Johnson\u2019s new one-shot vaccine, which is expected to be reviewed Thursday.
\nAs the United States races against time and devastating winter weather to vaccinate more than 300 million people against COVID-19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a new set of guidelines that removes a key requirement for vaccine approval.
\nThe FDA announced Monday that drugmakers would not need to perform a new round of massive clinical trials involving thousands of volunteers to test vaccines that have been adapted to target new variants of the coronavirus. The agency said companies can test the efficacy of the updated vaccines through a similar process used for annual flu shots.
\nThe process involves giving the newly adapted vaccine to a small group of volunteers and comparing the strength of its immune response to that of the original version. Researchers can test the newly adapted vaccine as either a first shot or a booster shot for those who have already been inoculated.
\nDrugmakers are already working to revise their vaccines to meet the rapidly evolving strains of the coronavirus that have been identified in Britain, Brazil and South Africa that may reduce the effectiveness of existing vaccines.
\nThe FDA\u2019s new guidelines were released on the same day the United States surpassed 500,000 COVID-19 fatalities, first among all nations and the only one to reach such a grim milestone in the 14-month-long global pandemic.
\nBut the tragic milestone comes as the nation appears to be turning a corner in the fight against the coronavirus. The average number of new COVID-19 infections and deaths has declined since its peak in early January, while vaccine distribution and inoculation rates are gradually rising, despite an initial shortage of vaccines and the recent snowstorm that struck much of the U.S. this month, which delayed new shipments of vaccines by several days.<\/p>\n
Source: Voice of America<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"