The US should expand the suitability of the coronavirus vaccine to ensure more Americans get injections in the coming weeks, Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC Monday.
“Right now, every shot in an arm is a win,” Gottlieb said on “Squawk Box.”
The US has left far behind its target by the end of 2020 to vaccinate 20 million people against Covid-19. While about 13.1 million doses were delivered to states on Jan. 2, only about 4.23 million Americans received their initial dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer, the only ones approved in the US for emergency use, both require two doses a few weeks apart.
Gottlieb, a former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and a current Pfizer board member, said the federal government should stock fewer doses, instead of following current policy of holding back about half of the available supply with the aim of guaranteeing people that they will receive their second injection.
Because of the intensity of the current Covid-19 outbreak, with some hospital systems under strain and thousands of Americans dying from the disease every week, Gottlieb said the priority should be to roll out as many initial doses as possible. “We know getting vaccines in weapons can be a partial backstop against continued spread,” he added.
“I think people should get the second dose. They should get the second dose mostly on time, but we can now release more first doses and use the future supply that will hit the market in January to get a part of those second doses, ”he said, referring to the vaccine makers’ plans to continuously ramp up the supply in 2021.
“You have to have something in stock if you want to ensure a smooth transition to the second dose, but if you put 50% of all doses away, I think I’ll deny more people access to a vaccine,” emphasizes Gottlieb, who explains the FDA from 2017 to 2019 in the Trump administration.
At the same time, he acknowledged that one possible reason why fewer Americans have been vaccinated than expected is that there is hesitancy to get the shot in the groups of people who have been given priority, such as staff in long-term care facilities. For example, Ohio Republican government Mike DeWine said last week that about 60% of nursing home workers in the state have refused to be vaccinated.
In addition to those who live and work in long-term care facilities, health workers were also given priority in the initial rollout. Last month, a CDC advisory panel recommended that “frontline workers” and people 75 and older should be next as more supply becomes available.
However, states have the option of determining who is eligible for the vaccine, and some, such as Texas and Florida, have already announced that they will change CDC guidelines for the second group. For example, in Texas, priority will be given to people 65 and older, as well as those with certain underlying medical conditions.
Gottlieb said he believes states should be willing to expand eligibility, including making the vaccine available at pharmacies, because it is important that high-risk Americans have access during what he calls “the worst part of this epidemic. this moment “.
“If we have a group of Americans who we know they really want the vaccine and would take it quickly and also happen to be at the greatest risk of a bad Covid outcome – and I’m thinking of seniors in this country in particular – I would just give it to them, ”Gottlieb said.
“I would make it publicly available to them as much as possible, while we focus on these priority groups. I’m not saying I should ignore that mission,” he said. “That’s a really important public health mission, but we shouldn’t spend three weeks trying to push the vaccines into the arms where you have some reluctance when we know those vaccines are on the shelf and on build the shelf. “
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and serves on the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing startup Tempus and biotech company Illumina. He is also Co-Chair of the Healthy Sail Panel of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean.