On Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box. The White House chief medical advisor said that he believed that the three major vaccines used in the nation – Pfizer-BioNtech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson would get full approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Dr. Fauci told CNBC that the data was “as good as it gets” and that he would be astounded if the vaccines did not get full approval. He also said that although they were under emergency use authorization (EUA), it was different from other EUA as those were granted with not as much positive data as that was available for the three approved COVID vaccines.

Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech had applied for full approval in May and Moderna applied for full approval on June 1. They had gotten EUA in December. Some believe that more Americans could take the shots after vaccines gain full approval. Companies could also implement vaccine mandates more easily, especially since the vaccination rate has been slowing down since spring.

Dr. Fauci and other officials had spoken to Pfizer on Monday, a day before his appearance on Squawk Box. He said that it was a courtesy meeting and emphasized that the discussion on booster shots had nothing to do with the efficacy of the vaccine.

He said that the unanswered question was about the duration of the protection and the level of protection. He said this was discussed and there was “nothing that came even close to any decision.”

Pfizer has been developing a booster dose to combat the delta variant of COVID-19 and is pursuing authorization. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the FDA have said that those who are fully vaccinated don’t need a booster shot, at present.

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