Low vaccine supply pushes U.S. vaccination timeline to at least late May: Fauci

FILE PHOTO: Anthony Fauci, MD, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, looks on before testifying at a U.S. Senate Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Hearing to examine COVID-19, focusing on an update on the federal response at the U.S. Capitol Washington, D.C., U.S., September 23, 2020. Graeme Jennings/Pool via REUTERS

The U.S. timeline for vaccinations against the deadly COVID-19 coronavirus will now stretch into late May or early June due to a limited supply of vaccines and the slow rollout of Johnson & Johnson's drug, Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease official leading the country's pandemic response, said on Monday.

"The critical issue is that the demand far outweighs the supply," Fauci said in a CNN interview. "I'm a little disappointed that the number of doses that we're going to get early on from J&J are relatively small."

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)