According to the New York Times, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could give full approval to the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine as early as this week, maybe even Monday, Aug. 23, 2021. Moderna could also be approved in the coming weeks.
13 ON YOUR SIDE reached out to the Ottawa County Department of Health and Human Services to get more insight on what this will mean in the effort to get more people vaccinated.
Right now, the Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer vaccines all have Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the FDA. This is a way to quickly give people access to potentially lifesaving medicine during a national crisis. The difference between that EUA and full approval is there needs to be six months of safety data before qualifying for full approval.
According to a recent Bloomberg report, since January, more than 358 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been safely administered in the U.S. with few incidents of serious complications.
Toni Bulthuis is the immunization supervisor at the Ottawa County Department of Health. She says with full FDA approval it will be easier for places like doctors’ offices to store and administer the vaccine, making the shots even more accessible to the public.
“It can be marketed from the pharmaceutical companies directly to offices. Hopefully, it’ll be packaged in small quantities. So, offices can get it or, for us, as the distribution center to private providers – we won’t have such large amounts at one time that we have to distribute and count out vials in the time-consuming process,” said Bulthuis.
Many employers have indicated that they would only mandate the vaccine with full FDA approval.
In Texas, a hospital was challenged in court after making vaccines mandatory for staff. In June, a federal judge dismissed the case, setting a precedent that companies can legally require staff to get the shot.
Health officials say FDA approval will provide another layer of support in any legal battles.
Also, a new Kaiser Family Foundation study found one-third of unvaccinated U.S. adults say they're more likely to get the shot with full FDA approval.