Tony's Diary Package — page 875

Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky are sworn in before testifying at a House Select Subcommittee hearing on April 15. (Susan Walsh-Pool / Getty Images) In January -- long before the first jabs of covid-19 vaccine were even available to most Americans -- scientists working under Dr. Anthony Fauci at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases were already thinking about potential booster shots. This story also ran on Los Angeles Times. A month later, they organized an international group of epidemiologists, virologists and biostatisticians to track and sequence covid variants. They called the elite group SAVE, or SARS-Cov-2 Variant Testing Pipeline. And by the end of March, the scientists at NIAID were experimenting with monkeys and reviewing early data from humans showing that booster shots provided a rapid increase in protective antibodies -- even against dangerous variants. Sept. 17, 2021 Very important decisions made today at VRPAC meeting. They voted unanimously to approve booster shots for people 65 years of age and older as well as those with underlying medical conditions that put them at risk for severe disease as well as those with occupations that put them at risk for infection. This is going to be a very difficult communications challenge. We just got off a phone call with the medical team following the announcement of this decision by VRPAC. And it is clear that if you keep all these people in the loop even though it looks like it's very restrictive you're gonna have about 80% of the population that are eligible to be vaccinated will be getting that third boost. More later.