Fauci apologizes for UK vaccine comments

Top U.S. infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has apologized for casting doubt on the rigor of the British regulators who approved the Pfizer Inc vaccine against COVID-19, saying he had faith in the quality of their work.

Emer McCarthy reports.

America's top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci is apologizing over comments he made where he appeared to cast doubt on the UK's recent approval of a coronavirus vaccine.

The British government announced the approval of a vaccine developed by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, on Wednesday.

But in an interview with CBS on Thursday, Fauci suggested the British regulators had failed to scrutinize the data carefully enough and had waved the vaccine through.

Now he says his earlier comments had come out wrong, and that there had been a "misunderstanding." Fauci told the BBC that the point he had been trying to make was that in a U.S. context, with widespread vaccine skepticism, it would not have been appropriate to conduct the process in the same way and at the same speed as what happened in Britain.

In response to his earlier criticism, the British regulatory agency issued a statement saying it had "rigorously assessed the data in the shortest time possible without compromising the thoroughness of our review." In related news: President-elect Joe Biden confirmed on Thursday that he intends to keep Dr. Fauci as the country's main advisor on the pandemic, when Biden takes office next month.