Receiving the two recommended doses of the Covid-19 vaccine is the best way to stay ahead of new mutant variants of the virus – and ultimately end the pandemic, said Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday.
“We think the ideal approach would be to continue receiving as many people as possible on their first dose,” and that these people continue to receive their second dose at the right time, Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a briefing of Covid-19 at the White House.
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The two Covid-19 vaccines available in the USA, from the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, are about 95% effective when administered in two doses, with an interval of three to four weeks. These dose ranges have been studied in clinical trials with tens of thousands of participants.
But a slower-than-expected national launch of the vaccine, coupled with the UK’s decision to postpone second doses, has led some to question why the U.S. doesn’t change its vaccination strategy from the more complicated two-dose regimen to one that it simply tries to get as many first shots at American weapons as possible.
Experts say, however, that just one dose of the vaccine is unlikely to be enough to contain the pandemic.
“If you have a lower immune response, which is what you are getting after the first dose, then you are more likely to hurt this virus than to kill it,” Dr. Paul Offit, vaccine researcher at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital , said last week during a call with reporters.
If we don’t kill the virus, Offit said, it will still have the opportunity to mutate.
The boost in response to the second dose, said Fauci, gives a “greater breadth of response”, which means it can protect not only against the “wild type” of the circulating coronavirus, but also against variants that are gaining ground in the U.S. .
Fauci said that while it is not unreasonable to study whether we could get away with a single dose, the virus is spreading and mutating faster than any research project would be able to answer that question.
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Furthermore, available vaccines appear to be effective against the variant first identified in the UK, called B.1.1.7. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that the variant would become the predominant strain in the United States in March.
The United States has identified coronavirus variants in 699 cases in the United States, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, during Monday’s briefing. In all but nine of these cases, the UK variant was identified.
“I’m asking everyone to keep their guard up,” said Walensky. “The continued proliferation of variants remains a major concern and is a threat that could reverse the recent positive trends that we are seeing.”
On February 6, new cases for Covid-19 fell by almost 20% compared to the previous week.
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