President-elect Joe Biden will aim to release all available doses of the coronavirus vaccine when he takes office, a break with the Trump administration’s strategy of withholding half of vaccine production in the States. United to ensure that two doses are available.
What does this mean: Releasing all doses of vaccine by hand could quickly increase the availability of coronavirus vaccines, as it would allow more people to access a first dose. It could also be a risky strategy, as both Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two doses, administered at specific intervals, and vaccine manufacturing has not increased 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 Americans who need it most receive it as soon as possible. He supports the release of available doses immediately and believes the government it should stop slowing down the vaccine supply so you can get more shots in the arms of Americans now, ”said TJ Ducklo, spokesman for Biden’s transition. “He will share additional details next week on how his administration will begin releasing the available doses when he takes office on January 20.”
The comment on Biden’s transition comes after a group of governors wrote a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Warp Speed’s operative general, General Gustave Perna, who was pressuring the federal government to distribute “reserved doses” of the Covid-19 vaccine to states that need them.
“Our states are ready to work 24 hours a day to increase distribution, get more shots in the arms and save more American lives. General Perna, as you said earlier, ‘a vaccine sitting on a shelf is not effective. “a letter reads.” We could no longer agree with you. That’s why we now ask for your help. When we work together, we can end this pandemic and return to normal life sooner. “
The Trump administration has insisted that doses need to be withheld to make sure Americans who receive the first course of a two-dose vaccine will have access to a second dose. But the move has sparked a debate over whether a better strategy would be to release all available doses as quickly as possible, especially amid mortality and hospitalization rates. A study published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine also found that administering first doses of a Covid-19 vaccine to more people instead of withholding the available supply to use as a second dose may reduce the number. of new cases.
“Operation Warp Speed continues to ensure that dose-by-dose doses are available at vaccine administration sites, at appropriate intervals, as directed by jurisdiction leaders,” a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said. . “We will be pleased to learn that jurisdictions have administered many more doses than they are currently reporting. We are encouraging jurisdictions to expand their priority groups as needed to ensure that no vaccine is sitting on the shelf after it has been delivered to the jurisdiction directed by the locations jurisdiction “.
The spokesman also noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently reiterated the importance of requiring two doses for both Pfizer and modern vaccines.
More information about vaccines: Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are about 95% effective after two full doses.
Earlier this week, two senior FDA officials said anyone receiving these vaccines needs both doses, rejecting the idea of extending the supply to just allowing one dose or halving the dose.
They also rejected other ideas to extend the supply of vaccines and said people speculating on the possibility of settling for a single dose or halving it are misinterpreting the data.
“We have been following discussions and news about reducing the number of doses, extending the time between doses, changing the dose (half dose) or mixing and matching vaccines to immunize more people against COVID-19,” The FDA Commissioner, Dr. Stephen Hahn and Dr. Peter Marks, who heads the FDA’s vaccine division, said in a statement.
“All of these are reasonable issues to consider and evaluate in clinical trials. However, at this time, suggesting changes in the dosage or timelines authorized by the FDA for these vaccines is premature and not firmly rooted. Without adequate data to support these changes in vaccine administration, we run a significant risk of endangering public health, which undermines historic vaccination efforts to protect the population of COVID- 19 “, they added.
Hahn and Marks also said the data support 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 vaccine. Modern vaccine.
According to the study published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, by reducing the number of vaccines retained to 10% during the first three weeks and providing a steady dose of 6 million doses a week, the U.S. could avoid up to 29% more cases for eight weeks.
Currently, the U.S. government withholds 50% of the available vaccine supply, distributing it to states and other jurisdictions weeks later to administer it as the second in a series of doses.
The researchers modeled several scenarios, with variables such as vaccine supply, protection provided by the first dose, and declining efficacy of the first dose if the second dose is delayed. Only in the unlikely scenario of the worst case of a supply collapse and minimal protection among people who have received the first dose would the model suggest that retaining 50% of the available supply provides better protection.
“We find that, in the most plausible scenarios, a more balanced approach that retains fewer doses during early distribution to vaccinate more people as soon as possible could substantially increase the benefits of vaccines, while allowing most recipients to receive second doses. in time”. write the study’s authors, who received support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.