An employee of the Emergency Medical Services Office (FDNY EMS) of the New York City Fire Department receives a Modern COVID-19 vaccine amid the coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19) in the district of Manhattan of New York City, New York, USA, December 23, 2020.
Carlo Allegri | Reuters
The head of the federal government’s Covid-19 vaccine program said Sunday that health officials are exploring the idea of giving a large group of Americans half-volume doses of a vaccine to speed up the launch.
Moncef Slaoui, the head of Operation Warp Speed, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that one way to speed up vaccination against Covid-19 was to administer two half-volume doses of the Modern vaccine to some people. .
“We know that for the Modern vaccine give half the dose for people between 18 and 55 years: two doses, half the dose, which means achieving exactly the goal of immunizing twice the number of people with the doses we have. We know it induces an identical immune response to the 100 microgram dose, “Slaoui said.
“And so we’re in discussions with Modern and with the FDA (of course, ultimately, it will be an FDA decision) to speed up the injection of half the volume,” he added.
Moncef Slaoui, a former GlaxoSmithKline executive, speaks with President Donald J. Trump during a vaccine development event at the White House Rose Garden on Friday, May 15, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post | Getty Images
The comments answered a question about why the United States did not now use the strategy of administering all available doses of vaccines, even though approved vaccines require a second round of vaccines to be fully effective. The UK has taken this approach, hoping that continued production will allow it to take second place in the future.
Slaoui said he thought it would be a mistake to make a decision that was not backed by trial data. The White House Health Minister, Dr. Anthony Fauci, made comments similar to NBC’s “Meet the Press” saying that the strategy “goes against science” and would not solve the problems facing the American deployment.
“The idea of stretching it so you can get more people, that is, if you don’t have enough vaccine and you have a lot of people in line waiting for the vaccine,” Fauci said. “That’s not our problem now. We have vaccine. We have to put it in people’s arms. It’s really the right solution to the wrong problem.”
The FDA and Moderna did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The argument over the different vaccination approaches comes as the implementation of the vaccine in the United States has failed to meet the goals of Operation Warp Speed and the pandemic continues to ravage the country. President Donald Trump has blamed the states for the slow deployment, as the number of vaccines administered is behind the number sent and delivered.
Health officials intended to inject 20 million Americans with a vaccine by the end of the year. However, only about 4.2 million had been shot as of Jan. 2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the last seven-day average for new coronavirus cases in the U.S. is 205,093. This figure increases by 8% on weekdays, although testing and reporting are often inconsistent during the holiday seasons. The nation also averages more than 2,600 daily deaths attributed to the virus, according to Johns Hopkins.