Here's when Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine boosters could be available

Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani takes a look at when covid-19 booster shots could become available to the public, as well as the recent report that over 15 million vaccines have been thrown away since March.

Video transcript

JARED BLIKRE: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. I'm Jared Blikre.

And on the COVID front, Dr. Fauci-- Dr. Anthony Fauci says that the Pfizer booster shots may be available September 20 but Moderna probably going to be delayed.

We want to bring in Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani with all the latest details. Anj.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Thanks, Jared.

Yeah, so Dr. Anthony Fauci did tell CBS that this weekend, and it's based on exactly what we've already seen because Pfizer has submitted the booster data to the FDA, and we do know that there is an advisory panel for the FDA set to meet on September 20. So all of that put together definitely puts the timeline in play for September 20 to be the starting point.

Now, that is just for Pfizer because Moderna, while it has as of last week said that it's submitted all its data, the FDA hasn't had a chance to look through it much, and also they had sent new information. So they're applying for an authorization of a 50-microgram dose, which is half the current dose. The idea being that it is equally or just gives enough of a boost as needed against the virus but also really frees up some manufacturing capacity for them. We reported last week that it would free up about a billion doses if they could use, as a booster, that 50-microgram dose. So a lot in play over there and probably will take the FDA a little bit more time to go through that data because it's new information.

Meanwhile, while we're already talking about boosters, we already know that the US is either set to waste or has wasted millions of doses. A report last week from NBC citing CDC data shows that about 50 million doses have already been tossed, essentially. And that's considering how much more could be sent to the world and what the global needs are, it's really a quite concerning number. And even as we set up to talk about these boosters, what will happen to that capacity and those doses that are sort of waiting in the wings? So there's definitely some urgency as it relates to getting this booster sort of program started again. Back to you.

JARED BLIKRE: Yeah, and we know you're going to be on top of all of this for us. Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani, thanks for joining.