COVID-19
vaccines, currently being administered under emergency-use authorisation, may
soon get formal approval from the US’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
According to an NBC news report, there is mounting pressure on the FDA to
approve Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

Full
approval may significantly change the way the vaccines are being administered.
While the exact changes that full approval may bring still remain unclear
according to scientists and doctors, the hope is that full approval may be able
to convince those who are vaccine hesitant that the shots are safe.

A survey
conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that three out of 10 adults
would be more likely to get vaccinated after the vaccines received full FDA
approval.

“People are
going to see full approval, and they are going to feel much more confident in
taking the vaccine,” Dr Robert Murphy told NBC News. Murphy is the executive
director for the Institute of Global Health at Northwestern University’s
Feinberg School of Medicine.

According
to Murphy, some of the lack of confidence in the vaccines is due to the fact that
the vaccines are currently being administered under emergency-use authorisation.

Emergency-use
authorisation is misunderstood, says Murphy, “It does not mean it’s
experimental. All the experimental work has been done,” he said.

However,
not all health experts agree that FDA approval could end vaccine hesitancy. The
same Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that two-thirds of adults, including
many of those who were unvaccinated, believed that all three vaccines available
in the US were either already approved or that they were unsure whether they
had been approved or not.

Even then,
public health experts believe that full approval could help companies and
cities with vaccine mandates. Full approval is also likely to open doors for booster
doses as it will grant doctors the power to prescribe medications “off label”.