Fauci says the U.S. is expanding Covid vaccine manufacturing to donate shots to the world

August 23, 2021: -The United States is expanding manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines to donate more doses to countries that don’t have as much access to life-saving shots.

“We are now working on expanding the capacity to allow us to donate hundreds and hundreds of millions of doses to the low-and middle-income countries,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, medical advisor to the president, said on Thursday to CNBC.

Scientists worldwide, including officials at the World Health Organization, have condemned wealthy nations for administering booster shots while many around the world remain unvaccinated.

Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO’s director of the health emergencies program, said wealthy nations that decide to provide booster doses are “handing out extra life jackets” to those who have one while letting other people drown.

Fauci said that the U.S. has given over 120 million doses to 80 countries and donated $4 billion in resources to the WHO’s COVAX vaccine sharing initiative.

“We are doing both,” Fauci said of distributing booster doses and helping different countries. “We’re very sensitive to the needs of the developing world that needs vaccine doses, but we believe we can do both.”

Worries of a delta peak to keep on the minds of many Americans as health systems in states with high infection rates struggle with the demand for hospital beds. An increase in the delta can be ignored in the U.S. if people take the vaccine, Fauci said.

“There’s a lot we can do about it,” Fauci said, also noted that 90 million people in the U.S. are eligible for vaccines but still haven’t gotten the dose. “We want to vaccinate the unvaccinated to the greatest extent that we possibly can.”

The outbreaks in few more countries, such as the U.K., suggest that delta infections tend to slow down dramatically after a peak.

“It’s tough to predict; we’ve seen in the U.K. that after several weeks of a high acceleration, it’s turned around,” Fauci said.

Once delta infections start to slow down, Covid-19 could become an endemic disease in the population at low levels, such as the flu, though Covid-19 is much deadlier. Unlike the flu that requires an annual dose, Fauci said he doubts Covid will need recurrent boosters to maintain high protection levels.

“I doubt seriously, but I don’t know for sure that we’re going to be able to say ‘we’re going to no longer need boosts every X numbers of months,’ I don’t think that’s going to be the case, I think this third shot will take us a long way,” Fauci said.