BIDEN PLANS TO SPEED RELEASE OF VACCINE DOSES
Proposal comes as U.S. records 300K new cases in 1 day
President-elect Joe Biden plans to release nearly all available doses of the coronavirus vaccine once he takes office, seeking to speed up the sluggish start of a mass vaccination campaign as cases soar, hospitals are overwhelmed and a fasterspreading form of the virus has invaded the country.
The plan, announced Friday by the Biden transition team, pivots sharply from the Trump administration’s strategy of holding in reserve roughly half the doses to ensure sufficient supply for people to get a required second shot.
Biden’s plan is the most concrete signal to date of how he intends to reshape the federal role in the unprecedented campaign to vaccinate the nation and tamp down a devastating public health threat. It also places him squarely on one side of a heated dispute over the ethics and practicalities of accomplishing that goal.
“The president-elect believes we must accelerate distribution of the vaccine while continuing to ensure the Americans who need it most get it as soon as possible,” a Biden transition spokesman, T.J. Ducklo, said in a statement. “He believes the government should stop holding back vaccine supply so we can get more shots in Americans’ arms now.”
The announcement came at the end of a grim week, with coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths all reaching record highs. On Friday, new cases surpassed 300,000 for the first time, according to Washington Post tracking, and about 130,000 people were hospitalized. Deaths reported in a single day reached 4,027 on Thursday — the first time the number surpassed 4,000.
The pace of vaccinations amid those worsening numbers has concerned many health officials. As of Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, 21.4 million doses had been distributed throughout the country but only 6.6 million of those had been given to people. Federal health officials say the data is incomplete.
The Biden transition team declined to provide details of exactly how much it expects to improve the pace of vaccinations through the release of a much greater share of doses of the vaccines manufactured by Pfizerbiontech and Moderna, both authorized last month on an emergency basis. Biden previously has set a goal of 100 million vaccinations within his first 100 days in office.
The dispute over whether to reserve doses stems from the fact that the coronavirus vaccines in use require a twodose regimen to achieve full effectiveness, and the supplies being manufactured are finite and expected to ramp up gradually. To be fully effective, the Pfizer vaccine, the first one approved, requires people who are immunized to return 21 days after a first dose for a second shot, based on data from clinical trials. The Moderna vaccine requires a second dose at 28 days.
The colliding views on reserving doses boil down to a disagreement over how much trust to put in the reliability of the manufacturing of the two vaccines, which rely on a biotechnology never before used for a vaccine. One of the companies, Moderna, is new to vaccine-making.
While officials with the federal Operation Warp Speed vaccine effort have always described the decision to reserve second doses as a temporary strategy, they have not said when they planned to alter it.
A Biden transition official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to reveal greater detail than the public statement, said the Biden team has “faith in our manufacturers that they can produce enough vaccines to ensure people can get their second dose in a timely manner.”
In addition, the official said, the incoming administration will, if necessary, make greater use of the Defense Production Act, a law that gives the government powers to step up manufacturing during wars and other emergencies.
According to Department of Health and Human Services data, Operation Warp Speed is allocating about 2 million Pfizer doses to be distributed next week, holding back an equal amount for second shots, and reserving about 156,000 doses as a safety reserve in case of theft or spoilage.
It is allocating nearly 6 million Moderna doses and holding back an equal amount for second shots next week, with more than 561,000 doses being held in safety reserve.
Vaccinations began in the second half of December, focused primarily on health care workers and residents and staffers at nursing homes — groups most at risk from COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus that, as of Friday, had infected nearly 22 million people nationwide and killed more than 367,000.
The FDA recently warned against extending the length of time between vaccine doses, cutting doses in half or using a single dose for a vaccine requiring two doses. Biden is not proposing any of those things. He is assuming that the companies will be able to produce second doses on time and planning for the federal government, if necessary, to take steps to ensure that.