Fauci:  That’s a very good question.

An emergency use authorization is based on the criteria if the benefit clearly outweighs the risk, and that you get a good degree of efficacy and safety.

The full licensure is when you follow it for a longer period of time and you get more information and data.

I have no doubt, given how very, very efficacious all three of these are, that they will ultimately get the full authorization, in the sense of what’s called a biological license approval.

Emergency use authorization is really quite of an important step in the direction of getting it the official approval.

So let me give you an example how much confidence I have in the emergency use authorization.  I myself got vaccinated with one of those three vaccines, and I recommended strongly to the President and the Vice President that they get vaccinated, and they did get vaccinated with it.

So they have a great deal of confidence in the safety and in the efficacy of the vaccine.

4:57

Derbez: If vaccines are safe and effective, why hasn’t the FDA given any of them the full official approval and license?

Fauci:  That is a very good question. 

There isn’t like they have any problem with it, it just takes logistically a long time to get the approval.

So when this is such a good product that you want to get it to people as quickly as possible because it’s lifesaving,  you give it what’s called an emergency use authorization.

Not that’s there’s anything less effective in it, it just takes a long time to get the full approval, and rather than deprive people of getting a life-saving vaccine before all the I’s get dotted and the T’s get crossed, they give it an emergency use authorization based on a lot of solid data that works.

6:08

Derbez: What is the medical and legal responsibility of the companies that are making the vaccines?

What happens if secondary effects are seen in let’s say in 5 or 10 years?

Can I sue the manufacturer of the product if it hurts me or if there’s long term effects years down the road?

Fauci: There is a fund that allows the compensation for injury, but I have tell you, Eugenio, it’s very, very, very unlikely that you’re going to have an effect 5 to 10 years down the pike.

The reason we say that is we have decades of experience in the field of vaccinology, and virtually all of the effects—if they even occur, and they’re  very rare—occur within 15 to 45 days following the dose.

One of the stipulations of the emergency use authorization, is that they don’t allow it to be given to people until 60 days following when half of the people have gotten their last dose.

So they’re adding some cushion time. So that’s the reason why, even though we had the data that indicated that it was safe and effective, each of the companies had to wait 60 days before they were able to release it to be given to the people because most of the bad effects, if they do occur, and I say, it’s extremely rare, they almost all occur between 15 and 45 days.

7:54

Derbez: I’m more concerned about the long term effect, honestly. That’s why I asked about if they can sue the manufacturer because governments around the world are taking liability.

 But I’m talking about the manufacturer. If there is a problem, can I sue the people that make the vaccine, not the government, the people who make the vaccine? I heard they are protected from liability.

If they’re not willing to stand for their product, or if I can’t sue them, does that mean they’re worried it’s going to hurt people?

Fauci: They are very sensitive about hurting people, but you can sue anybody you want to sue. There’s no guarantee because it would be in a court that would decide whether or not you get compensation, but we have not had any issues with that in any of the other vaccines, so I would be really surprised if that the case.

8:50

Derbez: There’s one thing that I suppose would make people or skeptics like me more confident about vaccines.

I’m thinking about if they removed the protections on vaccine manufacturers.

I think that the ability to be sued…is what makes companies make a better product. If you take that away, what incentive do they have to fix a problem with their product?

Do you know what I mean?

If the manufacturers could be sued for every death and injury that is caused by the vaccination, probably they wouldn’t put it on the market right now.

I think they should be responsible for the product they make.

Fauci: They really actually are. I think one of the things you’ve got to separate is when you get injury in a trial or injury in a product after it has been fully approved.

You have the opportunity—I-I-I understand where you’re coming from and why you bring it up, but you have the opportunity to sue anybody anytime for anything you want to do.

That is the truth.

They question is, you have to show that it is related to the vaccine itself.

We have so few, in fact I can’t even think of a situation where five or ten years later, something related to a vaccine caused someone an injury.

That’s the reason why I say, almost everything that occurs, is within a very short period of time. 

Derbez: But if I sue …it’s the government, not the company. Right?

Fauci: Right.

Derbez: I’ve heard that the reason people should take vaccines is to create herd immunity.

What is herd immunity?

Fauci: The first reason to take the vaccine is to protect yourself,  your family and your community.

Herd immunity refers to a situation where you have a high percentage of people who are vaccinated so that when the virus enters the community, they are so few people to attack that the virus has a difficulty in propagating itself.  …Herd immunity means you get an umbrella of protection because so many people are protected that when the virus comes in, it spreads only when there are a lot of vulnerable people.

If a certain percentage of the people are protected, like with measles, if you get 90 percent of the people vaccinated with measles—91, 92 percent—when you get measles introduced into the community, it will not spread.

But if you get down to levels into the 80s, there’s enough vulnerable people that the virus can spread.

They use the word herd. You know what it refers to? You ever see when you look at the movie pictures of Africa where you see the herds of wildebeests and the lions are trying to get to them?

And you have all of the adult wildebeests around, and the weak ones, the older ones or the babies, they’re in there, but there are few of them. The herd protects the vulnerable because in this case the lion or whatever the animal is that is the prey animal that’s trying to prey on them can’t get to the vulnerable ones because there are too many people that are protected.

That’s why they use the word herd immunity.

12:42

Derbez: If herd immunity is of paramount importance, what can be done with all the undocumented immigrants that will not want to get a vaccine out of fear of deportation?

Fauci: That’s a very important question.

The Department of Homeland Security has made it very clear that there will be nothing punitive associated with getting vaccinated, so undocumented immigrants who get vaccinated, will not be pursued for the fact that they are undocumented. That has been a promise from the Department of Homeland Security.

Derbez: No questions asked?

Fauci: We heard that from them in the previous administration and in the current administration. That is a promise.

For people to get vaccinated who are undocumented, they will not be penalized for being undocumented.

13:42

Derbez: I have friends that consider themselves very healthy. They say they don’t need the vaccine.

But I’ve heard that even if healthy people have a very low risk of dying from COVID, they should still get the vaccine so they don’t spread the virus to people who might be too old or too sick to get the vaccine. Is that true?

Fauci: That’s absolutely true.

 

 

 

An example: If you’re a young, healthy person, statistically the chances are if you get infected, you’re not going to get seriously ill. The people who get seriously ill and die—and I must point out as I think you know, already there have been 525,000 deaths in this country, which is absolutely terrible, the worst of any pandemic in over a hundred years.

But when a young person gets vaccinated, not only do they protect themselves, of course even though it’s rare, there are still a lot of young people who get seriously ill, not nearly as many as the elderly or people with underlying conditions.

But if a young person has an underlying condition like diabetes or obesity or hypertension, they will be at high risk to get serious consequences.  But when you get vaccinated, not only do you protect yourself, but you prevent yourself from inadvertently, maybe innocently and unknowingly infecting someone who is a loved one, a family member or maybe just someone in society, who if they did get infected, they would have a serious consequence.

So you have a personal responsibility and a societal responsibility to protect yourself from getting infected.  

15:29

Derbez: The news has reported that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are 95 percent effective.

Does this mean that if I get the vaccine, I won’t get infected with the SARS—CoV2 virus?

Fauci: That means that there is a 95 percent chance that you will not get symptomatic infection, mainly that you won’t get infected to the point that you get symptoms.

We are unsure right now what the protection is against infection because it’s conceivable that you could get vaccinated, get exposed, get infected, not know it because the vaccine is protecting you against symptoms—that you could have virus in your nasopharynx, which is the reason why we say until we prove that the vaccine prevents transmission, that people who are vaccinated, should wear a mask when they’re near people  who might be vulnerable to infection.

16:31

Derbez: I think it’s a different thing to stop the clinical disease or the symptoms; it’s different from getting the virus, the infection. 

Right?

So basically the vaccine lowers my symptoms, but it may not prevent me from being infected with SARS-CoV2, which means there’s the possibility that I can still spread the virus even after I receive the vaccine.

Fauci: That’s the reason why we ask you to wear a mask after you’ve been vaccinated, but the evidence is accumulating that the level of virus in the nasopharynx is very low, and it is unlikely that you would transmit it. But just to be sure, we’re saying wear a mask.

In the next couple of months we will get enough data to be able to prove whether or not, if you get infected despite the fact that you’re vaccinated, proving that in fact that it is a very, very low risk that you would transmit it to someone else.

 

17:40

Derbez: I’ve been reading and I saw that you stop getting the symptoms but you still can get infected, and you can still spread it.

Fauci (nodding) Right.

Derbez: So [what is] the aim of the vaccine, if they neither stop you from getting the virus or transmitting it?

Fauci: The main purpose of the vaccine is to prevent you from getting sick, going to the hospital and maybe dying.

That’s the main purpose of the vaccine.

The main purpose of the vaccine in general is to prevent you from getting clinical illness.

We believe that when all the data come in, we will prove that it also prevents you from transmitting the infection to other people.

Derbez: But not yet, right? …

How can we still need to wear masks… How can we still need to wear masks after being vaccinated?

Under these circumstances, when are we going to get back to normal? Are we going to stop using the masks someday?

Fauci:  Absolutely, absolutely.

Let me tell you what you can do right now.

If you are vaccinated and you are with a person who is also vaccinated in the setting of the home, if you’re with your mother, your daughter, your wife, your friend, if you’re with people who are also vaccinated, in the setting of the home, you don’t need to wear a mask, and you can have physical contact.

You can hug your children, you can hug your mother or your father. You can do that if  everyone is vaccinated, even if some are not vaccinated as long as they are not at risk for serious disease.

Let me give you an example.

Suppose a grandmother is vaccinated. She wants to go a few houses down the block to see her daughter and her granddaughter.

If the daughter and the granddaughter are not vaccinated, the grandmother can still go in there so long as the daughter and the granddaughter don’t have an underlying condition that make them susceptible to a severe case of COVID19.

If they’re normal and healthy, the vaccinated grandmother can go visit the daughter and the granddaughter, take the mask off, give them a big hug and give them a kiss.

You can do that.

20:30

Derbez: I’m confused about something. I thought herd immunity works because by being vaccinated, I block the virus from spreading to other people.

But these vaccines may not do that. So how does herd immunity work if I can still spread the virus even after getting the vaccine.

Fauci: The fact is the vaccine protects many, many, many from getting infected.

Some pe0ple might get infected and they might even transmit it.

We know that some people get infected. We know that, but not everybody who gets the vaccine is going to get infected without symptoms. So the overwhelming majority of the people who get vaccinated, not only will not get sick, they won’t get infected, but there will be some who might be infected.  And when they are infected, it is unlikely they will transmit it.

21:39

Derbez: So there is a possibility that the vaccine can turn people into what is called asymptotic carriers? Which means they don’t have symptom ms, but they’re still contagious, correct?

Fauci: Yes, we’ve said that. It’s true, but we’re showing as the time going by that it is likely that those people have a very small chance of transmitting it. We won’t know exactly how much until we follow these people for a considerable period of time.

22:06

Derbez: Moderna and Pfizer are both mRNA vaccines.

Has this kind of mRNA vaccine technology ever been injected into humans before?

Fauci: This is the first time, and the good news is that the results are really, really good.

Derbez: In essence, this is an experimental technology.

Fauci: Well, it’s a new technology, and it is proven in a very large group of clinical trials to be safe and highly effective.

Derbez: Are you completely positive that this new technology is safe?

How can we be sure there won’t be long term effects when these vaccines were seemingly developed so quickly and have only been tested for months and not years.

Fauci: The speed with which it’s been done is a reflection of the extraordinary advances in science, and there was no compromise of safety, but as I said before, in the history of vaccinology, you don’t see effects that occur years later.

Almost all of the bad effects—as rare as they are, and they are very rare—occur between 15 and 45 days from the time you get vaccinated.

As I said, because of that, just to be sure, the vaccine is not allowed to be distributed until 60 days after the people have been vaccinated.

23:50

Derbez: The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is not an mRNA vaccine, correct?

What kind of vaccine is it?

Fauci: It’s a vaccine that uses a harmless common cold virus in which you insert the gene of the protein that you want the body to make an immune response against.

You inject it, the body sees the protein, makes an immune response and then protects you against infection.

Derbez: And this is the first time this has been injected into humans too?

Fauci: No, no, no. They have a lot of experience with EBOLA in Africa with this.

24: 37

Derbez: There are many Latinos in the community that are practicing Catholics.

Last week Catholic bishops warned the Catholic community that they should not use the Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

Can you explain why?

Fauci: Some, some, not all, because there are Catholic bishops who are saying the oppose of that.

And the reason is that in the preparation of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine they use the cell line that was taken from fetal tissue from years and years ago to be able to produce the vaccine.

Some of the bishops felt that because that was used, that we should not use the vaccine

25:15

Derbez: Is that true that there is residual DNA from an aborted baby in the Johnson and Johnson vaccine?

Fauci: No, there’s no residual DNA that gets injected into you at all.  It’s in the preparation of the vaccine.

There is no residual human fetal DNA at all.

25:39

Derbez: Kids, I’m concerned about my daughter. I have a six year old daughter, and I’ve heard the death rare among kids is extremely low.  Do they really need the vaccine? Are going to [vaccinate] kids in the future? Is it going to be mandatory?

Fauci: In order to be able to completely crush this outbreak, you want to get as many people, including children, vaccinated as you possibly can, because when you do you will get such a broad protection that you could eliminate this virus. And that’s what we’re trying to do.

Also, even though children unusually can get a serious outcome, some children do get very seriously ill when they get infected. And that’s the reason you want to vaccinate them, not only to protect them, but they can be the vehicles of spread of the virus to other people.

26:40

Derbez: Is it going to be mandatory at school, because my daughter, when I enrolled her into school, it was mandatory to have all the vaccines.

COVID didn’t exist back then. Is it going to be mandatory at school to have the COVID vaccine?

Fauci: I can’t say that it is or won’t.  It’s is certainly conceivable that it might ultimately turn out to be mandatory, but right now, nothing that we’re talking about is mandatory.

In the future, it could be, similar to the mumps, measles, rubella and the hepatitis and the meningitis-all of which are required if you go into a public school.

Right now there is no mandatory anything about it, but someday it might be.

27: 32

Derbez: With so many variants and counting, how effective are each of the approved vaccines? If I get the vaccine, but it doesn’t protect me against a new variant.

Fauci: You’re asking about the variants. The most prevalent variant in the United States is the one from the UK called the 117.

The vaccines that are available right now are highly effective against that particular variant.

It’s less effective against the South African variant, but that is not a prevalent variant in this country right now.

The most prevalent one is the one from the UK.

Derbez: What if I get the vaccine, but it doesn’t protect me against the new variant?

Pharmaceutical [companies] are working on a third booster shot.  Is that true?

Fauci: Yes, but let me explain what happened in the trial in South Africa with the J and J vaccine.

It didn’t completely protect against getting infected or getting symptoms, but it totally protected you against getting into the hospital and dying.

So when you get exposed to a variant, you may not be completely protected, but it is very, very good protecting you against getting seriously ill.

Derbez: And this third booster shot that they’re working on, that says to me that probably they’re not confident that the two shots are going to be good enough.

Does that mean that the vaccine doesn’t work against variants?

Fauci: No, they’re not saying that. They want to be doubly sure. In case they have to give a booster, they want to determine what the effect of that booster is. So in order to be doubly sure, we’re proceeding with studies to see what happens when you give a third shot.

That has nothing to do with being confident or not confident. It means you want to be doubly sure that you’re covering all the bases.