“The president-elect believes that we must accelerate the distribution of the vaccine and, at the same time, ensure that the Americans who need it most receive it as quickly as possible. He supports the release of immediately available doses and believes the government should stop withholding the vaccine supply so that we can get more shots in the arms of Americans now, “said TJ Ducklo, spokesman for the Biden transition.” He will share details next week on how his government will start releasing the available doses when he takes office on January 20. “
“Our states are ready to work 24 hours a day to increase distribution, obtain more vaccines and save more American lives. General Perna, as you said earlier, ‘a vaccine standing on a shelf is not effective’,” said Letter reads. “We couldn’t agree with you anymore. That’s why we are asking for your help now. When we work together, we can end this pandemic and return to a life of normality sooner.”
The Trump administration has insisted that it is necessary to withhold doses to ensure that Americans who receive the first course of the two-dose vaccine have access to a second dose. But the shift has sparked a debate about whether a better strategy would be to release all available doses as quickly as possible, especially amid rising mortality and hospitalization rates. A study published on Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine also found that administering the first doses of a Covid-19 vaccine to more individuals, instead of withholding the supply available for use as a second dose, can reduce the number of new cases .
“Operation Warp Speed continues to ensure that second doses are available to locations where the vaccine is administered, at appropriate intervals, as directed by jurisdictional leaders,” said an HHS spokesman. “We would be delighted to hear that jurisdictions have in fact administered far more doses than they are currently reporting. We are encouraging jurisdictions to expand their priority groups as needed to ensure that no vaccines stay on the shelf after being delivered to those directed by jurisdiction Locations. “
The spokesman also noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently reiterated the importance of requiring two doses for the Pfizer and Modern vaccines.
They also rejected other ideas for stretching vaccine supplies and said people who are speculating on whether to settle for just one dose or cut doses in half are misinterpreting the data.
“We have followed discussions and news about reducing the number of doses, increasing the interval between doses, changing the dose (half dose) or the combination and combination of vaccines to immunize more people against COVID-19,” 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 point, suggesting changes to the dosage authorized by the FDA or the schedules of these vaccines is premature and has no solid roots in the available evidence. Without appropriate data that support such changes in vaccine administration, we are at significant risk of putting public health at risk, undermining historic vaccination efforts to protect the population of COVID-19, “they added.
Hahn and Marks also said that the data supports the administration of the second dose of each vaccine at the specified interval – 21 days after the first dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and 28 days after the first dose of the Modern vaccine.
According to the study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on Monday, by reducing the amount of vaccine doses retained to 10% in the first three weeks and providing a constant dose of 6 million doses per week, the US could avoid even 29% more cases in eight weeks.
The US government currently retains 50% of the available vaccine supply, distributing it to states and other jurisdictions weeks later to be administered as the second in a series of 2 doses.
The researchers modeled several scenarios, with variables that include the vaccine delivery, the protection provided by the first dose and the decrease in the effectiveness of the first dose if the second dose is postponed. Only in the unlikely worst-case scenario of a collapse in supply and minimal protection among individuals who received the first dose would the model suggest that retaining 50% of the available supply provides better protection.
“We found that, under the most plausible scenarios, a more balanced approach that retains fewer doses during initial delivery to vaccinate more people as quickly as possible can substantially increase the benefits of vaccines, while allowing most recipients to receive second doses at timeline, “wrote the study’s authors, who were supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.