The Walgreens system currently allows people to reschedule their second dose appointment, but they can only do so the day before the appointment.
“I’m not happy about that,” said DeTurris Poust. “It gives me an extra week without being protected, so it means there is another week when I am concerned about taking it from someone or giving it to someone.”
Some public health experts said they were not concerned that Walgreens had scheduled doses at an interval of four weeks.
“It is a week difference. Everyone will need to put it in their contexts and risk factors, but I think this is a very reasonable approach ”by Walgreens, said Dr. Katherine Poehling, a pediatrician at Wake Forest School of Medicine who is on the advisory panel at CDC who recommended that Pfizer doses be administered approximately three weeks apart.
But other experts said they were concerned.
“It is not the role of a private, for-profit company to make public health decisions that must be determined by guidelines issued by a public health authority,” said Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University.
Dima Qato, a pharmacist and associate professor at the School of Pharmacy at the University of Southern California, said she was concerned about how the public perceived inconsistent messages about dose spacing of the same vaccine.
“As we are trying to build confidence in this pandemic, I think it could push us backwards,” said Dr. Qato.
Walgreens is not the only vaccine supplier that has given the second injection a little later than recommended. Others across the country have been doing this for months, especially in the early days of launch, when vaccine supply was restricted and locals were unclear about which vaccines and how many doses they would receive in subsequent weeks, said Tinglong Dai, who studies operations at Johns Hopkins University.