Millions of Americans are getting their second dose of the drug coronavirus vaccine within the recommended time frame to ensure optimal protection against COVID-19, according to a CBS MoneyWatch review of the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As of Wednesday, just over 2.8 million Americans who received their first injection – nearly 12% of vaccinees – had not received their second dose within the 28-day interval prescribed for Moderna’s vaccine, one of two approved for use in the USA. another vaccine, co-produced by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, is expected to be administered 21 days after the first dose is administered.
The number of people yet to receive their second dose of vaccine is based on the latest public data from the CDC. Vaccination and health care experts who reviewed the numbers for CBS MoneyWatch said there have been scattered reports of delays in getting both shots within the suggested time frame.
“I hear anecdotal about people trying to schedule their second shots and having challenges in doing so,” said Bruce Y. Lee, who studies health management and public policy at City University of New York. “It’s challenging to roll out a vaccine, especially when it comes to two shots. All of this should have been planned prior to the rollout last year, and this is further proof that it wasn’t.”
By the end of January, 96% of Americans who received their first vaccination had received their second four days of the correctly prescribed interval, according to previous CDC data obtained by CBS News. But the agency has not released an update on how the country is doing in administering both shots within the recommended timeframe.
Meanwhile, the number of people getting their second dose on time has dwindled – and the gap, which was over 1 million just a week ago, is growing rapidly, to 2,826,134 people on Feb. 24.
A CDC spokeswoman said some of the recent delay in administering both first and second doses was due to the weather. She said the CDC plans to release new information on second-dose completion rates soon.
Hospital administrators and state health officials speaking with CBS MoneyWatch attributed the delays in getting their second injection to a shortage of vaccine doses and to scheduling and shipping snafus.
- In Arizona, residents who went to the State Farm Stadium mass vaccination site outside of Phoenix couldn’t get appointments for second shots. Although the planning issue has now been addressed, it has caused delays. Only 35% of those vaccinated in Arizona have received a second dose, one of the lowest rates among states. That is comparable to about 50% nationwide.
- In Pennsylvania, officials said last week that a previous confusion led a number of health care providers to use doses to be reserved for second injections in new patients. As of last week, the matter has left the state at least 60,000 doses that weren’t enough to give a second injection on time.
- In Iowa, some counties that would receive shipments of the Moderna vaccine received the Pfizer-BioNTech version instead. The two shots are not interchangeable. Earlier this week, the state health official told about 14,000 residents living in and around Des Moines who had received Moderna shots to wait for follow-up doses after their scheduled date.
According to health professionals, Americans are simply less of a concern choose to skip their second shots, an issue that experts had warned could undermine the introduction of vaccines.
Dr. David Basel, chief of vaccinations for Avera Medical in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, one of the largest health care networks in the state, said no-shows for the second shot account for less than 1% of all vaccinations there. The main reason people don’t show up between shots is illness in the meantime, he added, “We vaccinate the elderly and the most at-risk populations first. People get sick, and that’s often not the case with COVID.”
A lack of vaccine to deliver the second doses appears to be a major problem for hospital systems. Jessica Daley, a pharmacist and vice president at Prime Minister who purchases medical supplies for thousands of hospitals in the US, said many hospitals were instructed to use whatever dose they had for the first injections and that more supplies would come. Recently, however, they have seen their shipments decline. In recent weeks, a number of states have shifted more vaccines to it pharmacy chains or mass vaccination sites and away from hospitals.
“We did a sample survey, and the main concern of hospitals is getting the vaccine,” said Daley. “I’ve heard hospitals don’t get those second doses.”
A new 42-day window from the CDC
More encouragingly, some health experts think that delays in the second dose of vaccine do not nullify the US vaccination effort. Earlier this month, the CDC published new guidelines that second injections could not be administered until 42 days after the first dose, although the agency reiterated that a second injection within 21 or 28 days was optimal.
Recent early studies also suggest that a single shot still provides significant protection against the spread of the coronavirus, although not as many as two shots.
“In the grand scheme of things, when you consider the other issues we have, this is a minor issue,” said Will Humble, a former top public health officer in Arizona.
Humble also said getting more people to get a first dose, rather than finishing a second dose, would make the vaccine rollout more equitable for minority communities and likely still lower infection rates overall.
“We’ve wrapped ourselves up in a less effective way of saving lives because of the way the trials were formulated,” he said of the initial emphasis on two doses.
Still, most health experts recommend that people try to stick to the recommended intervals for getting two vaccinations. Tinglong Dai, a professor of health management at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, said the vaccine supply is not increasing as quickly as it takes to continue the current rate of vaccination. States will have to withhold more doses to make sure they have enough to deliver a second dose in the correct time frame, he added.
Earlier this week, Dai published a study with two co-authors from Oxford University and the University of California at Berkeley that found that releasing more second doses to increase the number of people getting at least one injection does not lead to less contamination. with the coronavirus. The paper found that extending the time between doses still slows infection but will eventually lead to more cases as the pandemic progresses.
“I think distribution will get better,” said Dai. “But unless the supply of vaccines grows exponentially, we will be lagging behind [of people waiting for that second shot]