Some COVID-19 Vaccines Could Work Better on One Patient Population than Others, Says Dr. Anthony Fauci

Among the four COVID-19 vaccines in the final stage of US clinical trials and another one about the enter Phase 3, few of them could hold promise in some patient populations better than others.

Speaking to Dr. Howard Bauchner, editor of JAMA during a recent interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that as the COVID-19 vaccines receive approval, researchers could discover that one works better on one population than others. The different COVID-19 vaccines will provide several options should one not be as effective as another.


The four COVID-19 vaccines that are in final-stage US clinical trials are being developed by Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. The fifth vaccine against COVID-19 from Novavax has begun Phase 3 clinical trials in the UK.

“There may be different vaccines for different situations,” Fauci told JAMA’s Bauchner. “You might find when you do a clinical trial, that you maybe have three or four vaccines that are effective.”

“But you may find one that does better in an older population than another,” Fauci added. “It could be that you would recommend, that if you are an older person you get this vaccine versus that. That is something we wish for namely that we have enough vaccines that you can tailor the better one for each individual group.”