January 3rd local time, the New York Times quoted a senior official of the U.S. federal government as saying that the federal government is considering halving the dose per dose of the coronavirus vaccine developed by the American biotechnology company Modena to speed up vaccination by the American people.
The New York Times reported that Monsef Slawy, the chief adviser of the U.S. coronavirus vaccine program Operation Warp Speed, revealed the news in an interview with CBS.
The “halving” of vaccine dose is questioned.
Slaway said in an interview that the federal government is communicating with Modena and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the above ideas, and whether to promote the plan will ultimately be decided by the FDA.
He also claimed that “based on clinical trial data provided by Modena, giving half the dose to people between the ages of 18 and 55 can produce the ‘same immune response’ as the full dose, which can double the number of vaccinations with the existing vaccine stock.”
Slawi’s “halving plan” has attracted a large number of netizens to question.
They believe that the fundamental problem at present is that the federal government does not have a clear vaccine distribution plan and cannot ensure that all people can be vaccinated smoothly.
Some netizens compared the data of Modner’s vaccine clinical trials with the “halving plan” and pointed out that “the recommendation of dose halving is based on the ongoing second phase of research.
However, the immune response is not exactly equal to the efficacy of the vaccine, and the current sample size is very small. Also, if 50μg is enough, why did they choose 100μg as the full dose for phase 3 clinical trials?”
Some netizens pointed out, “I’m very sure that the upper class will not participate in the halving plan, and we ordinary people can only get leftovers.”
Some medical staff refused to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.
The Washington Post said that millions of doses of two coronavirus vaccines produced by Pfizer and Modena are entering hospitals and health departments across the United States after months of waiting.
However, the American people have been confused about when, where and how to vaccinated, because in the loose public health system of the United States, different regions have taken different measures, and even medical staff are difficult to figure out.
Among the medical staff with priority vaccination rights, some people refuse to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus. The results of the survey released by the Los Angeles Times show that less than half of the more than 700 medical staff in a community hospital in California are willing to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.
About 20 to 40 percent of the frontline health care workers in Los Angeles County refuse to get the coronavirus vaccine.
The Los Angeles Times noted that combined with what the federal government has done, this result is not surprising.
Epidemiologists believe that public resistance to the coronavirus vaccine will have a disastrous impact on public health and safety.
Chicago mayor: It will take a year and a half to vaccinate the residents of the whole city.
On the 3rd, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that the vaccination rate in the United States was slower than expected.
“Over 4.2 million people have been vaccinated so far since the U.S. started the vaccination effort on Dec. 14, far below the federal government’s target of 20 million people to be vaccinated by the end of last year,” he said.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said on social media that the number of vaccines received by the city of Chicago could not meet the vaccination needs.
She said that at the current rate of vaccine distribution by the federal government, it will take 71 weeks, nearly a year and a half, to vaccinate the entire Chicago residents.
The federal government needs to play a more active role in mass vaccination efforts, said former Baltimore Health Commissioner Win Reina.
“Local and state health departments have responded to the pandemic, but they need the federal government’s help very much when they’re running mass vaccination programs,” she noted.
