Fauci urges Americans to get vaccinated, not to cherry-pick the brand they receive

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, prepares to receive his first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at the National Institutes of Health on December 22, 2020 in Bethesda, Maryland.

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• Dr. Anthony Fauci urged Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19, but not cherry-pick the brand they receive.
• An FDA advisory committee is set to vote on green-lighting a coronavirus vaccine by Johnson & Johnson on Friday.
• "People should get vaccinated… Where a vaccine becomes available, take it," Fauci said on NBC News.
• Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

Top US infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci urged Americans to get a coronavirus vaccine and not to cherry-pick the brand they receive.

New data from the Food and Drug Administration showed the single-dose coronavirus vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson was safe and effective, which could drastically speed up the timeline of vaccine distribution in the US.

An advisory committee is set to vote on green-lighting the J&J vaccine for distribution on Friday, allowing it to join the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines in the US rollout. If the vaccine is approved, the US could finish vaccinating priority groups by March, Insider's Aria Bendix reported.

In an interview with NBC's "TODAY", Fauci expressed optimism about a possible third vaccine being administered to Americans.

"To have two is fine; to have three is absolutely better," Fauci said during the "TODAY" segment. "It's better because there are more choices. It's better because it increases the supply of vaccines."

The J&J shot is only a single-dose, compared to the Moderna and Pfizer two-dose vaccines, which are usually administered three to four weeks apart. Federal data shows the newest vaccine was 66% effective at preventing severe cases of COVID-19, while the Moderna vaccine and Pfizer vaccine were respectively 94% and 95% effective.

However, "it is nearly just as good at preventing hospitalizations and deaths," Insider's Hilary Brueck reported.

The infectious disease expert urged Americans to get vaccinated as soon as it becomes available to them, regardless of the brand.

"This is a race between the virus and getting vaccines into people," Fauci said. "The longer someone waits to get vaccinated, the better chance the virus has to get a variant or a mutation."

"So the sooner we get vaccine into the arms of individuals, whatever that vaccine is, once it gets by the FDA, if it's available to you, get it," Fauci said

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