Fauci warns variants are a ‘wake up call’ as he heralds Johnson & Johnson vaccine in race to stop Covid

'It is an incentive to vaccinate as many people as we can as quickly as we possible'

Dr Anthony Fauci has called the highly transmissible variants currently spreading through the world a “wake up call” for the public, but said Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine news was “very encouraging” in controlling Covid-19. 

Variants originally detected from the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Brazil have all been found in the United States in recent weeks. Two cases of the South African variant were discovered in South Carolina on Thursday. 

Scientists are still studying the impact of these variants, but initial data has shown them to be more transmissible compared to other Covid-19 mutations. Higher transmissibility from a virus means more people will contract it, impacting case numbers and hospitalisations.  

“This is a wake up call for all of us,” said Dr Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, during the White House Covid response team’s Friday briefing. 

“We will continue to see the evolution of mutants. We will have to be nibble to adjust readily to whatever mutation is happening at the time,” he added. 

A key takeaway from these highly transmissible mutations was the need for the United States, as well as the world, to get vaccinations into the arms of people before more variants become prevalent. 

 “It is an incentive to vaccinate as many people as we can as quickly as we possible,” Dr Fauci said. 

"You can be almost certain that as long as there is a lot of virus circulating in the community, there will be the evolution of mutants, because that is what viruses do,"  He added. “Viruses can’t mutate if they can’t replicate.” 

Moderna and Pfizer both have emergency use authorisations from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for their Covid-19 vaccine in the US. But Johnson & Johnson revealed today that its one-shot vaccine was 66 per cent effective against the novel virus and 85 per cent effective against severe disease in its global clinical trial. The company would likely seek emergency use authorisation from the FDA in the coming weeks. 

Dr Fauci called the results “very encouraging”, specifically with what it meant for severe disease. 

“There were essentially no hospitalisations or deaths in the vaccine group, whereas with placebo group there were,” he said when speaking of the clinical trial. “We have a value-added vaccine candidate.” 

He went on to explain the domestic and global impacts of this latest vaccine, if it were to seek emergency use authorisation. The vaccine was a one-dose shot and showed efficacy within the first seven to 10 days for people. Additionally, it did not require extreme cold storage compared to the Pfizer vaccine. 

Johnson & Johnson could also “create doses in the billions” given its company size and manufacturing capacity, Dr Fauci said. 

Although the vaccine showed a lower efficacy compared to Pfizer and Moderna, experts like Dr Fauci have said the value was there for Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine because of its impact on severe disease and ability to vaccinate more people quicker.