Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said on Sunday that it could be months before investigators know for sure whether COVID-19 transmission is possible from a person who has received the vaccine.
On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” host Margaret Brennan asked Slaoui when scientists will know if such transmission is possible, a key factor in determining when the United States will develop herd immunity to the virus.
“Do you have a date to know when once you’ve been vaccinated you can still give the virus to other people?” Brennan asked.
“No,” Slaoui replied. “These studies, frankly, will be based on observational data on the population. I don’t think we have data before the end of spring.”
Yes #OperationWarpSpeed have a schedule of having been vaccinated if you can still give it #coronavirus to others?
Slaoui explains @margbrennan “no” without projected data on this timeline until late spring pic.twitter.com/0Ibkk4YWl1
– Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) January 3, 2021
He also addressed reports of delays in the implementation of vaccinations in the United States, noting as a general surgeon Jerome Adams
Jerome Adams Sunday shows preview: Senate candidates prepare for Georgia qualifiers; government continues to launch coronavirus vaccine on Sunday: Opposition to Trump’s COVID-19 relief law dominates the general surgeon on medical racism: “We must recognize these things” MORE did in a separate interview on Sunday with a figure indicating that 1.5 million Americans have received vaccines in the last 72 hours.
“Our assumption has been that there is a plan in place to vaccinate,” Slaoui said of state efforts to distribute the vaccine. “We are here to help with any specific requests. We will do our best, as we have done for the past eight months, to make these vaccines effectively an arm of people.”
Top federal officials have defended the launch in the United States of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines in recent days amid reports of a significant gap between the number of vaccines distributed in the states, which has totaled more than 14 million, and the number of Americans who have been vaccinated. In the US alone, more than 4 million doses have been administered
“Somewhere there is a delay in the way the figures are calculated, but it is certainly a number that is less than the 14 million doses that are available to us,” Slaoui said last week. “We agree that this number is lower than we expected.”