A spokesman for Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccination initiative, released a statement strongly criticizing Biden’s approach.
“If President-elect Biden is asking for the distribution of vaccines knowing that a second dose would not be available, that decision is without science or data and is contrary to the FDA-approved label,” said spokesman Michael Pratt. “If President-elect Biden is suggesting that the maximum number of doses should be made available, consistent with ensuring that a second dose of the vaccine will be there when the patient appears, then this is already happening.”
A transition team spokesman, TJ Ducklo, said Biden “believes that we should speed up the delivery of the vaccine and at the same time ensure that Americans who need it most receive it as quickly as possible.”
“He supports the release of immediately available doses and believes that the government should stop withholding vaccine supplies so that we can get more vaccines into the arms of Americans now,” said Ducklo. “He will share additional details next week about how his administration will begin to release the available doses when he takes office on January 20.”
Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health specialist at the George Washington University School of Public Health, said she was surprised and concerned by the new strategy, which seemed to offer an incongruous solution to the biggest problems with the vaccine launch. Distribution has exploded in large part because of a lack of management capacity and various logistical obstacles, rather than a severe lack of doses.
“This is not the problem we are trying to solve right now,” said Dr. Wen.
For this plan to work, Dr. Wen added, the Biden administration will need to rely on the best distribution tactics and sufficient vaccine production, “so that everyone who receives the first dose of the vaccine will receive the second in a timely manner. “
If a large number of second doses are delayed – ostensibly avoiding the regimens established in clinical trials – “there is a risk of substantially eroding public confidence in vaccines,” said Dr. Wen. The recommended period for administering the second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 21 days later, and for the Moderna vaccine, 28 days.