President-elect Joe Biden will strive to release every available dose of the coronavirus vaccine when he takes office, a break with the Trump administration’s strategy to stop half of U.S. vaccine production to ensure second doses are available. to be.
What this means: The release of all available vaccine doses could quickly increase the availability of coronavirus vaccines by giving more people access to a first dose. It could also be a risky strategy, as both the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two doses, delivered at specific intervals, and vaccine production has not accelerated as quickly as many experts had hoped.
The president-elect believes we need to speed up the distribution of the vaccine while continuing to ensure that the Americans who need it most get it as soon as possible. He supports the immediate release of available doses and believes that the government must stop holding back the supply of vaccines now get more shots in the arms of Americans, ”said TJ Ducklo, a spokesman for Biden’s transition. release of available doses when he takes office on January 20. “
The comment of Biden’s transition comes after a group of governors wrote a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and Operation Warp Speed Chief Operating Officer General Gustave Perna urging the federal government to request “ reserved doses ” of the Covid 19 vaccine to states that need them.
“Our states are ready to work around the clock to ramp up distribution, get more weapons and save more American lives. General Perna, as you said before, ‘a vaccine on a shelf is not effective,'” read the letter. ‘We couldn’t agree more with you. That’s why we’re asking for your help now. If we work together, we can end this pandemic and return to a normal life sooner. ‘
The Trump administration has pushed for the need to withhold doses to ensure that Americans who get the first course of the two-dose vaccine definitely have access to a second dose. But the move has sparked a debate as to whether a better strategy would be to release all available doses as soon as possible, especially given rising death rates and hospitalizations. A study published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine also found that the number of new cases can be reduced by giving first doses of a Covid-19 vaccine to more people instead of holding back the available supply for use as a second dose.
“Operation Warp Speed continues to ensure that second doses are available to vaccine delivery sites at appropriate intervals as directed by the appropriate authorities,” said a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson. “We would be pleased to learn that jurisdictions have actually administered many more doses than they currently report. We encourage jurisdictions to expand their priority groups as needed to ensure that there is no vaccine on the shelf after it is delivered to the jurisdiction. locations. “
The spokesperson also noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recently reiterated the importance of two doses for both the Pfizer and the modern vaccine.
More about the vaccines: The Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are both approximately 95% effective after two full doses.
Earlier this week, two top FDA officials said that anyone who receives these vaccines needs both doses, dropping the idea of expanding supplies by allowing just one dose or cutting the doses in half. pointing the hand.
They also rejected other ideas to expand the vaccine supply, saying that people who speculate about the possibility of settling for just one dose or cutting the doses in half are misinterpreting the data.
“We have been following discussions and news reports about reducing the number of doses, extending the length of time between doses, changing the dose (half dose), or mixing and matching vaccines to immunize more people against COVID-19, FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn and Dr. Peter Marks, who heads the FDA’s vaccine division, said in a statement.
“These are all reasonable questions to consider and evaluate in clinical trials. At this point, however, suggesting changes to the FDA-approved dosing or schedules of these vaccines is premature and not firmly rooted in the available evidence. Without adequate data, however. that support such changes. When administering vaccines, we run a significant risk of endangering public health, undermining historic vaccination efforts to protect the population from COVID-19, “she added.
Hahn and Marks also said that the data supports giving the second dose of each vaccine at the specified interval – 21 days after the first dose for the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and 28 days after the first dose for the Moderna vaccine.
According to the study published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, by reducing the amount of vaccine doses retained to 10% for the first three weeks and giving a steady dose of 6 million doses per week, the U.S. avoid. % more cases over eight weeks.
The US government currently holds 50% of the available vaccine supply and distributes to states and other jurisdictions weeks later to be administered as the second in a series of 2 doses.
The researchers modeled different scenarios, with variables such as vaccine supply, protection afforded by the first dose and decreasing efficacy of the first dose if the second dose is delayed. Only in the unlikely worst-case scenario of supply collapse and minimal protection of first-dose individuals would the model suggest that withholding 50% of the available supply provides better protection.
“We find that under the most plausible scenarios, a more balanced approach where fewer doses are withheld during early distribution to vaccinate more people as quickly as possible could significantly enhance the benefits of vaccines, while enabling most recipients to receive time to get a second dose, ”write the study authors, who were supported by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.