There's absolutely nothing wrong with an individual who has a certain level of risk aversion, as we know the risk is extremely low of getting infected whether you're indoors or outdoors, but there are those people who don't want to take that bit of a risk, and there's nothing wrong with that, and they shouldn't be criticized.

Anthony Fauci

If anyone's got a doubt that United States may not be taking safety very seriously, I think this is an affirmation that safety is a primary consideration when it comes to the FDA and the CDC, that's why it was done and that's why it's a pause. It isn't a cancellation, it's a pause.

If you look at the history, look at what has gone on with the Moderna and Pfizer, you have literally tens and tens and tens of millions, there have been no red flags.

What you need to do is you need to look at the level of infection in the community, being vaccinated, the risk for you is very low. It isn't like before, when you were not vaccinated and you had a lot of activity in the community and you went into an indoor restaurant where there was no( restrictions)... your risk would be up there. Whereas now, the risk is not zero, but it's extremely low.

So there is some merit to the arguments that are made.

Multiple studies have shown now that after the first dose, at four weeks, the efficacy is somewhere between 80 and 92%.

Getting vaccinated is the best thing we can do to fight back against these variants, while millions of people are vaccinated, we need millions more to get vaccinated. I need your help. I need you to help, not just the country, but your family, your friends, your neighbors, get them vaccinated as well.

We certainly are taking the New York variant, the 526 [referring to B.1.526] very seriously.

We don't compare one to the other, the only way that you can effectively do that is by having head-to-head comparisons in a clinical trial, which was not done. And so, as Andy said, and I'll reiterate, it's a question if you go in and the vaccine is available to you, I would take the first available vaccine because the most important thing to do is to get vaccinated and not to try and figure out if one may be or may not be better than the other.

As we've said many times, and happy to reiterated right now, we have three highly efficacious vaccines with a very good safety profile, each preventing hospitalizations and deaths. That's point number one.

First of all, I love Jerome Adams. Jerome Adams's really Jerome Adams. We worked so well together during The Trump administration, i think he's incorrect on this.

We're telling people [ two shots ] is what Anthony Fauci should do... and then we say,' Oops, we changed our mind' ? i think that would be a messaging challenge, to say the least.

Right now, we project that the clinical trials will give us information that by the time we get to the fall, high school students will be able to be vaccinated, i'm not sure if it's going to be by the first day of school, but sometime in the fall.

The way the program is now scheduled, children who are elementary school, 6 to 12, that group of individuals... those individuals will not be able to be vaccinated until their trials are finished, which will likely be at the earliest, the end of this year, more likely the first quarter of 2022.

I understand the need to want to get back to normality, but you're only going to set yourself back if you just completely push aside the public health guidelines -- particularly when we're dealing with anywhere from 55 to 70,000 infections per day in the The US.

If I were not vaccinated now and I had a choice of getting a JJ vaccine now or waiting for another vaccine, I would take whatever vaccine would be available to me as quickly as possible for the simple reason of what I said a moment ago.

There have been a number of studies to show that when you have children that are of a certain age, namely … eighth grade and higher, that they transmit as easily as adults transmit.

It’s just that the demand clearly outstrips the supply right now.

Enjoy Super Bowl but don't do Super Bowl with a large crowd of people in your house, in a place where Super Bowl's cold and you don't have good ventilation. Super Bowl's a perfect set-up to have a mini super-spreader event.

That's what I think is going on : a combination of the natural peaking, as well as people doubling down on the public health measures.

As difficult as that is, at least this time around, just lay low and cool it.