Coronavirus Vaccine Already In CT, Fauci Says

CONNECTICUT — The distribution of a coronavirus vaccine to clinics and pharmacies in the tri-state area has already happened, according to immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

Now that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization for the vaccine, developed by pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, "the doses are ready to be injected into people virtually immediately," Fauci said.

Fauci made his remarks as a guest on News 12's "The New Normal" on Friday, one day after the Connecticut Department of Public Health declared that 99.7 percent of the state is now a coronavirus red zone.

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Your local CVS and Walgreens may have the vaccine, but distribution will be according to prioritization. The most vulnerable people, including the elderly and those who are immunocompromised have been prioritized, according to Fauci.

"The first tier of people ... will be health care workers, as well as people in nursing homes and extended care facilities," Fauci said. "The man and woman in the street should not expect, at least in December, that they will be getting the vaccine."

Host Eric Landskroner cited a Quinnipiac University poll that indicated 61 percent of people were willing to be vaccinated, but also other surveys that placed that number much lower.

Fauci, who has clashed with President Donald Trump over his response to the pandemic, said to convince people the vaccine is safe, it is necessary to first explain to them the steps involved in producing and testing it.

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Skeptics who point to the unprecedented speed to market as a reason to be leery about the new drug should be educated about the "extraordinary advances in the techniques of the scientific basis for the platform that's used to make the vaccine," Fauci said.

"It was an extraordinary scientific accomplish that we should have confidence in because it was based on solid scientific advances," Fauci said, emphasizing that the vaccine "doesn't interfere with your genetic code at all."

According to Fauci, the most common side effect for the new coronavirus vaccine will be the one associated with every vaccine: a sore arm.

"You may feel a little bit fatigued and down for 24-36 hours at the most," Fauci said. "A small percentage of the people might get a fever that would last for 24 hours. You can take a Tylenol and take care of that without much problem."

In the 30,000 people in the Moderna trial, and the 45, 000 people in the Pfizer trial, there were no "severe adverse events" according to Fauci.

Landskroner reminded Fauci that in the United Kingdom, two vaccine recipients had severe anaphylactic reactions. Fauci said that authorities are closely monitoring the situation overseas, and that "when you see something like an allergic reaction, you modify the recommendation and you say that someone who has a history of a severe allergic reaction ... either don't get vaccinated now with this product, or they do it in a location that has the capability of responding to an allergic reaction."

There is also a "very, very small number of people" who have adverse neurological reactions to flu vaccines in the past should not plan on getting a coronavirus vaccine, Fauci said.

When challenged that there was no data yet about the effects the drug might have on small children and pregnant women, Fauci said those groups were not included in the coronavirus vaccine trials by design.

"Traditionally you want to show that a vaccine within the period of time that you have evaluated it is both safe and effective normal adult individuals." The immunologist said that trials for pregnant women and children would probably be done in "January or at the latest February."

"The vaccine trials — appropriately — did not include them, because children and pregnant women are vulnerable," Fauci continued. "We want to make sure we don't put them at an increased risk. So you wait."

It didn't surprise Fauci that the governors of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island seemed to be going their separate ways on the matter of indoor dining restrictions. He said that he has spoken with all four leaders, and found them to be "on top of this, and they are trying to do what's best for their own states and their own big cities."

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Fauci, whom President-elect Joe Biden has named as his chief medical adviser, said he sympathizes with people suffering from "COVID fatigue," but warned the country hasn't yet left the woods.

"We are now in a very precarious situation," Fauci said. "If you look at the slope of infections in the United States as a whole, it's really terrible ... We can't give up to 'COVID fatigue' now, that would be disastrous."

As of this weekend, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting there have been just under 300,000 coronavirus-associated deaths in the United States since the start of the pandemic this spring.