According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the US government is considering using the recommended second dose of the approved COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate more people on a first round.
“ I still think if done right you can do a single dose, reserve doses for the second dose and still get the job done ” Fauci said Thursday on NBC’s Today Show. “ But there is a lot of debate about whether or not you want to spread the first vaccination by getting more people vaccinated in the first round. ”
Of the two approved vaccines, both have been proven to be 95% effective. But for that efficacy, the injection of Pfizer requires a second dose 21 days after the first and Moderna 28 days after the first injection.
Currently, the federal government is withholding some of the received vaccines for the recommended second dose. But the current discussion is to scrap that plan, Fauci said.
“ One of the problems with that is if you don’t get the second dose on time, you will have a delay, ” he said. “And we know from the clinical trial that the optimal time is to give it in one day, then 28 days later for Moderna and 21 days later for Pfizer. That’s what the data tells us to do it. So if you want to stick to the data, that’s how you should do it. ”
Fauci seemed noncommittal to his recommendation, saying, “You could argue about that anyway.”
Fauci admitted that since only 2.8 million of the 14 million doses received have been injected, the US government has missed its target of vaccinating 20 million by the end of the year. However, he expects the pace to pick up in January.
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