NIH’s Fauci: `Cautiously optimistic' on Moderna vaccine

Infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, M.D., says he's "cautiously optimistic" about biotech company Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

Fauci has said this a number of times before in various interviews since phase 1.

But he believed, back in June, that a successful COVID-19 vaccine will not be a "one and done" and will require a booster dose to provide immunity.

"When you induce a response with a vaccine that would be protective, a big unknown is the durability of that protection. Is it going to be a year, two years, or unfortunately, six months or less?" said Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), speaking during a Wall Street Journal health technology event backing June.

"If it's measured in several months instead of years, and that's entirely conceivable, then we have a secondary problem. We get into a logistics issue of how often we need to boost somebody to get immunity up," he said.

"I am concerned that with a successful vaccine we may have to do boosting because of the durability of the response," he said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci also said recently that the coronavirus is here to stay.

“I think we ultimately will get control of it. I don’t really see us eradicating it,” the United States’ leading infectious disease expert said, explaining that the virus’ high transmissibility makes it highly unlikely that it will be completely eliminated.

“I think with a combination of good public health measures, a degree of global herd immunity and a good vaccine — which I do hope and feel cautiously optimistic that we will get. I think when you put all three of those together, I think we will get very good control of this,” Fauci said.

Market implications

Health officials around the world are also trying to tackle a renewed increase in cases, with surges from China to Spain and Germany underscoring the difficulty of curbing the pandemic.

The fact that the virus is here to stay is something that will continue to weigh on risk appetite which should underpin gold prices, the yen and the CHF.

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