Full approval for vaccines that protect against COVID-19 may not be far away, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday. Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, cautioned that while the Food and Drug Administration solely conducts its own review process, he “hopes” that full approval will come by the end of the month. “No one wants to get ahead of the FDA because they’re an independent group that makes their own decisions,” Fauci said' "Meet the Press." “But I hope, I don’t predict, but I hope that it’s in the next few weeks. I hope that it’s in the month of August."

The vaccines have been given emergency use authorizations. Full approval could spur new vaccine mandates in private businesses, a move public health officials praise. Fauci warned that if COVID is not controlled another variant might emerge that is even more problematic than the delta variant now racing across the nation. A fully approved vaccine would lead to “the empowerment of local enterprises” to institute vaccine mandates, he predicted.

Over the past several weeks, an increasing number of private businesses and institutions have begun mandating vaccines as a condition of employment or enrollment in educational programs. Walmart and Target recently began requiring masks for employees – but not customers – in areas where virus transmission rates are high. McDonald’s is requiring masks for employees and customers. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institute of Health’ “This Week” that he endorses seeing “businesses deciding that they’re going to mandate (vaccines) for their employees,” adding that “we ought to use every public health tool that we can when people are dying."

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