Dr. Anthony Fauci has a pretty simple message going into the holiday weekend — get your COVID-19 vaccine booster shot as soon as possible.
- “The bottom line is get vaccinated if you’re not vaccinated, and boosters if you have been vaccinated,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned Sunday that children 5 to 11 years old should get the coronavirus vaccine now since it’s available to them. Getting them vaccinated earlier can help make the holiday season safer, he said.
- “Since we can vaccinate children from 5 to 11, you start vaccinating them now (and) they will be fully vaccinated by the time we get to the Christmas holidays,” he said.
On Friday, all American adults became eligible for the COVID-19 booster shots after both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration approved the shots.
Earlier in November, Fauci told NPR that his goal was to keep coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths low heading into the winter months, which would limit the spread when families decide to gather together again.
- “We’re looking for a level of control ... where the level of infection — due to vaccination predominantly, but also people who may have been infected and have some degree of protection — that doesn’t disrupt society the way the COVID-19 outbreak is currently doing with us,” Fauci said.
- “So as we go into the winter months with the challenge of a respiratory infection being worse in the winter months, we can get through this if we really put a lot of effort into getting as many people vaccinated as we possibly can,” Fauci said.