The Trump administration is in talks with Moderna about speeding up the coronavirus vaccination process by giving people just half the company’s recommended dose of the company’s vaccine, a top adviser said Sunday.
Moncel Slaoui, the chief science adviser for Operation Warp Speed, said there is evidence that giving two half doses to people between the ages of 18 and 55 “elicits an identical immune response” to the normal 100 microgram dose.
In an interview with Margaret Brennan about CBS’s “Face the Nation”, Slaoui said the strategy “is precisely to achieve the goal of immunizing double the number of people with the doses we have.”
But Slaoui has also argued strongly against the idea that people only need one injection instead of the current two-dose regimen, so it’s not clear how it would be different to give people two half doses.
Slaoui’s comments come as the US vaccination program has crept out of the gate. Vaccine distribution was slower than expected, and actual vaccinations were even slower.
The administration fell short of its goal of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of 2020. Only about 4 million Americans received the first of two doses, and just over 13 million doses were delivered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Logistical troubles have plagued the Trump administration’s distribution efforts, with much of the crucial “last mile” of work ending up with underfunded local health departments.
States are struggling to administer the doses they already have, leading many experts to question a strategy that will effectively double the availability of doses but not provide additional assistance to the jurisdictions.
Slaoui told Brennan that he and others in the government assumed that when states ordered a certain number of doses, they had distribution plans.
“We assumed there was a plan to vaccinate. We are here to help with any specific request. We will do our very best, as we have done for the past eight months, to make these vaccines. it in people’s arms, ‘Slaoui said.
Under the current federal plan, the government’s Operation Warp Speed delivers only half the number of doses needed to states each week. The other half stays in a warehouse, held back to make sure there is enough stock for a second dose.
Given the inefficient rollout, health experts and federal officials are looking for ways to speed up the process.
One option recently adopted in the UK is to prioritize giving everyone a first dose and delay a second dose for up to three months.
Slaoui said he doesn’t see that happening in the US, and questioned the science behind the delay.
Both Moderna and Pfizer were approved in a two-dose form, and Slaoui said studies show that the second dose produces an immune response 10 times higher than the first dose.
“We have no data after one dose,” Slaoui said. Postponing the vaccination schedule “without any data would not be responsible in my opinion,” he said.