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“We’re not going to do anything without FDA approval,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday. This time, he was referring to Covid-19 vaccine booster shots and the U.S. administration’s intention to start rolling them out by September 20th. In Israel, around three million people have already received a third, or booster, vaccine dose from Pfizer, and in the United States too, it seems that Pfizer is winning the race for FDA approval.

Speaking on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Dr. Fauci noted that “Pfizer has their data in [and] likely would meet the deadline. We hope that Moderna would also be able to do it so we could do it simultaneously, but if not, we'll do it sequentially. So the bottom line is very likely, at least part of the plan will be implemented, but ultimately the entire plan will be.”

The missing data, Fauci explained, relates to “two elements, [and] one is safety. In other words, to get enough people that you've followed significantly along enough to say that it's safe, we feel almost certainly that it is … The other is the immunogenicity or efficacy.”

Studies are ongoing to investigate both safety and efficacy for both vaccines, Fauci noted, and then commented on what has become known as “mix and match.”

“We’re doing studies right now … lining up Pfizer against Pfizer, Pfizer for Moderna, and vice versa,” he said. “Hopefully within a reasonable period of time, measured in a couple of weeks, we will have that data. But right now, we are suggesting and hopefully it will work out that way, that if you got Pfizer, you will then boost with Pfizer. If you get Moderna, you'll be boosting with Moderna…

“And the good news about all vaccines,” Fauci concluded, is that “if you get the level of antibody high enough, which boosters actually do, then you can feel pretty confident that you're going to be protected against virtually any variant.”