The U.S. government is considering using the recommended second dose of the approved COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate more people during a first round, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
''I still think, if done properly, you can do a single dose, reserve doses for the second dose, and still get the job done,'' Fauci said Thursday on NBC’s Today Show. ''But there’s a lot of discussion about whether or not you want to spread out the initial vaccination by getting more people vaccinated on the first round.''
Of the two approved vaccines, both have proven to be 95% effective. But for that efficacy rate, Pfizer’s injection requires a second dose 21 days after the first and Moderna’s 28 days after the initial injection.
At present, the federal government is withholding some the received vaccines for the recommended second dose. But the current discussion is to scrap that plan, Fauci said.
''One of the problems of doing that is if you don’t then get the second dose in time, you’re going to have a lag period,'' he said. ''And we know from the clinical trial that the optimal time is to give it on one day and then for Moderna 28 days later and for Pfizer 21 days later. That’s what the data tells us to do it. So if you want to stick with the data, that’s the way you should do it.''
Fauci seemed non-committal on his recommendation, opining: ''You could debate either way on that."
Fauci admitted that since only 2.8 million of the 14 million doses received have been injected, the U.S. government has missed its goal of inoculating 20 million by the end of the year. However, he expects the pace to increase in January.
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