Category: Covid-19 Vaccine

Houston is one of 20 cities across the U.S. where kids 12 to 17 years old are able to take part in the vaccine trial.

HOUSTON As vaccines roll out across the country, Moderna's vaccine trials now expanding to teens and Houston will play a pivotal role.

"We're one of 20 sites in the whole U.S. which is amazing," said Dr. Sarah Hasan, a researcher with DM Clinical Research.

Just last week, the Houston Fights COVID Movement together with the Cy-Fair Clinical Research Center began vaccinating kids and teens for Moderna.

"Right now we're in the hundreds and looking to be in the thousands," said Hasan. "We're looking for teenagers between 12 and 17 to be part of this initiative."

There's no cap on how many can participate.

"We're looking for kids, generally healthy, able to take vaccinations and able to come in for the study visits" said Hasan.

Parents have a lot of questions about possible side effects, but so do teens.

"Teenagers themselves have a lot of questions," said Hasan. "Everyone knows about COVID-19 so that scare factor is there."

Hasan says the trial is safe and effective especially after months of studying the vaccine in adults. The children will be monitored for 13 months and need to return for 6 follow up visits. She says it's one of the quickest ways for teens and kids to get vaccine protection.

"Being a part of the study gives kids a chance to get protection sooner rather than later," said Hasan. "They have a 2 in 1 chance to get vaccine over the placebo. If these kids are out there getting the vaccine at least they're getting the protection and able to go back to school faster and safer as well."

If you're interested in signing up, you can do so at HoustonFightsCOVID.com. Participating teens will receive up to $1,000 for participating.

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Moderna COVID-19 vaccine trial open to kids and teens in Houston - KHOU.com

Hundreds of WCSD employees to receive COVID-19 vaccine starting Saturday  Reno Gazette Journal

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Hundreds of WCSD employees to receive COVID-19 vaccine starting Saturday - Reno Gazette Journal

Getting the vaccine made me more grateful than ever for tireless scientists and researchers.

Ten minutes after getting the COVID-19 vaccine, I climbed behind the wheel of my truck outside of Holy Cross Hospital in Taos, New Mexico, and felt a strong physical urge to curl up in the seat and take a nap. I had planned to spend my afternoon on a mountain bike in the badlands north of Santa Fe. It was New Year's Eve, and I was just shy of my goal of 1,000 biking miles for 2020.

Instead, I spent the final hours of a historic and horrendous year sitting on my couch, groggily feeling as grateful for technology and tireless scientists and researchers as I ever have.

The dose circulating in my bloodstream was developed in record time using brand new technologies. Past vaccines have taken several years to get to the public, with the mumps vaccine holding the previous record at four years.

Keep track of the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna -- the only two currently authorized for emergency use in the US -- use synthetic messenger RNA, or mRNA. This molecule contains a bit of the genetic code of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and stimulates the immune system to build up its defenses against the virus without actually being exposed to it.

I tend to melt around needles, but the COVID-19 vaccine injection delivered the least pain and anxiety I've ever experienced from the mean end of a syringe. I would easily prefer getting stuck again with one filled withPfizer's COVID-19 vaccineover stepping on a wayward Lego any day.

The opportunity to get the vaccine so early came as a surprise.

The Pfizer vaccine was only authorized on Dec. 11, with the Moderna vaccine approved a week later. On Dec. 29, I registered to get the shot on a New Mexico Department of Health website. Based on my age (41) and risk factors (none), it seemed I could expect to wait several months before it would be my turn to get a shot in the arm.

The following day, unrelated to my registration, I received a group message from the leader of the local search and rescue group I volunteer with. Turns out trained and mission-ready members of our group were eligible to receive the vaccine right away along with other first responders.

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The truth is I'm at relatively low risk of coming in contact with the virus. My wife and I work from home in a rural area, and our daughter hasn't seen the inside of a classroom since March.

But every few months or so, I spend a day (or a very long night) on a mission working with other search and rescue personnel and first responders to find someone lost in the millions of acres of forest, mountains, desert and river canyon that draw countless skiers, rafters, bikers and hikers here year-round.

Normally, I'll also spend a few days a month training in the field, practicing avalanche rescue or working with search dogs, among numerous other skills. I pass a couple more evenings each month in classroom sessions. But all that in-person training has been suspended since March to comply with state emergency health orders.

The mission call-outs haven't stopped, however. We've just added masks and hand sanitizer to our mission packs, among other new precautions.

So when some members of our team said it didn't quite seem right for us to receive the vaccine so early -- ahead of even the elderly and behind only frontline health care workers -- I agreed. We were encouraged to reconsider by our team leader.

The hope is we may begin to resume in-person training as soon as February and be able to respond to missions with that much more confidence in our skills and, hopefully, in our immunity to COVID-19.

Getting the shot was a pretty routine and literally painless process considering the months of anticipation for the big moment. Our team was invited to come to a building at the hospital set up for vaccinations during a one-hour window. We entered through tents in the parking lot on a crisp winter morning, and we waited for our temperatures to be taken and for a little paperwork to be completed.

Anyone without a sufficient mask (no bandanas here) was given a fresh one wrapped in plastic. After a little more processing and paperwork, we each got a stick in the arm, a Band-Aid and a vaccination card with instructions to return in three weeks for a second dose.

After getting stuck I was led to another room supervised by a traveling nurse to wait for about five minutes just in case of a sudden allergic reaction. We were also told to take it easy on the way home as such reactions usually crop up within about an hour. My teammates thanked the nurse for her work. She shared some anecdotes from the past year. Most were positive patient experiences, but there was also the story of the man at an Oklahoma gas station who berated her for pumping gas while wearing scrubs for fear she might contaminate the pump.

A very nice holiday card.

We all gave thanks for the coming New Year, and the nurse handed me another fresh mask wrapped in plastic and instructed me to continue to wear one and to practice social distancing.

I also received instructions for downloading a CDC smartphone appto track and report any side effects (or lack thereof) over the next few days.

In the first four days, I reported no side effects save for a little soreness around the injection spot in the first 24 hours. On day five, a headache and wave of nausea kept me in bed all morning, but I can't be sure that was tied to the vaccine. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was dehydration from a hike the previous evening.

The bottom line is that after my first dose, I feel fine, and now I have 12 fresh months to log 1,000 miles on my bike.

I'll report back again after my second dose later this month. Meanwhile, I'm adding a new profession to my gratitude list. Along with health care and essential workers and all the others that have kept us going, I now also think about the dedicated folks who spend countless hours in labs around the world. I imagine each one of those hours has brought us days closer to a return to normal life.

The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

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I got my COVID-19 vaccine earlier than expected. What the shot is like - CNET

ROCKFORD (WREX) Frontline workers at Mercyhealth started receiving their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday.

The healthcare workers are getting their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine after receiving their first dose of the virus in December.

Mercyhealth was one of the first health systems in Rockford to start administering the Pfizer vaccine.

Pfizer reports its vaccine is 95 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 among people who had no evidence of prior infection. Due to limited allocation,and based on federal and state guidance, the first shipment of the Pfizer vaccine was given to health care workers.

Healthcare workers with SwedishAmerican Hospital will start receiving their second dose of the vaccine on Thursday.

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Mercyhealth starts administering second doses of COVID-19 vaccine - WREX-TV

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) The U.S. Department of Labor reported 41,724 new unemployment claims filed in Tennessee and Virginia last week.

According to a report from the department, 25,170 claims were filed in Virginia during the week ending on January 2 along with Tennessees 16,554.

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JUST IN: BMS Dragway COVID-19 vaccination gate closed at noon, expecting to run out of vaccine - WJHL-TV News Channel 11

COLUMBIA, SC (WSPA) Front-line health care workers in SC are being asked to schedule appointments to get their shots before Jan. 15th.

One day after the Governor set that deadline, state health officials gave an update on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in South Carolina. They said as of Wednesday 36% of the Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccines theyve received from the Federal Government have been administered.

They are still asking for patience. Interim Director of Public Health Dr Brannon Traxler said, It is going to take some time.

She said everyone in Phase 1-A of the states vaccination plan have to sign up for a vaccine by Jan. 15th.

If not, they would be put in the next category Phase 1-B to get a vaccine.

Dr. Traxler said, Our ultimate goal is to save south Carolinians lives. DHEC remains dedicated just as they have been this whole pandemic to working with our partners and ensure everyone in this situation who wants to get a vaccine will be able to get a vaccine.

They said health care workers and their employers need to contact their local hospitals to get an appointment for a vaccine.

The South Carolina Hospital Association said some of their members have touched base with all eligible health care workers in their community. Chief Operating Officer Melanie Matney said, They are ready to move on to phase 1-B. Some communities feel January 15th might be too late they can do it sooner than that.

She said hospitals are working on different ways to help health care workers in their community schedule an appointment. They have set up email accounts to answer questions and help with the process.

DHEC has updated their website with contact information for hospitals.

Dr. Traxler said they are also working on finalizing plans on the best way to sign people up in Phase 1-B for the vaccine.

According to DHEC, about 1,000 health care workers in South Carolina have already received their second dose of the vaccine.

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More than 52k health care workers have received COVID-19 vaccines, close to 70k have scheduled appointments - WSPA 7News

By the time Im writing these lines, Israelwhich started vaccinating its population in early Decemberhas already vaccinated over 14 percent of its citizens in just over three weeks. This is an impressive achievement that places it at the top of the list of COVID-19 vaccination efforts, way above richer and larger countries such as the United States and many European nations.

While the current prime minister, Benyamin Netanyahurunning for reelection in March 2021, the fourth election in two yearshas made sure to take all the credit for this success (and he definitely deserves some of it) the truth is that theres more than only his statesmanship, policymaking ability, or personal charm behind this great achievement. After all, if it was only up to Netanyahus public health policies, most Israelis wouldnt be demonstrating regularly against his governments handling of the pandemic for the past few months, which has been disastrous, to put it mildly.

The first question is how Israel was able to get that many vaccines when supply is short? It is not becauseaccording to reportsIsrael paid about $30 per dose, almost double what other nations did. In fact, many countries probably would have been willing to pay even more, especially since almost any price is cheaper than the losses associated with extending the pandemic. In a recent column, Israel Channel 13 journalist Nadav Eyal explained what was really behind Israels ability to get an impressive amount of vaccine doses. The answer: Israel is a great pilot country for the pharma companiessmall and able to put together a massive vaccination program quickly and effectively. Netanyahu knew it, and the pharma companies did too. This was confirmed, in fact, by the Israeli Minister of Health, Yuli Edelstein, who said in a recent interview that Israel had entered into negotiations with drugmakers as an early bird, given its ability to deliver.

What makes Israel a great pilot country? The answer: its vast public health infrastructure, a public good that has developed through heavy public investment since the creation of the state about 70 years ago. The World Banks World Development Indicators show signs of the high levels of public investment in Israels health system since the early years of the state. For instance, in 1960, Israel had 2.5 physicians and 6.83 hospital beds for every 1,000 people, compared to less than 1.3 and less than 6, respectively, for countries such as Uruguay, Poland, and Greece, which had similar income per capita levels at the time. Israel at the time also stood out in terms of results: In 1961, Israel had the highest life-expectancy figures for countries with similar incomes. In fact, despite some negative trends in public investment in health in recent years, today Israel spends about 7 percent of its GDP on health and with it is able to achieve remarkable results. Life expectancy at birth for the average Israeli citizen is among the highest in the world, at almost 83 years. This is higher than other richer countries that invest even more in health, such as the United States, which spends nearly 20 percent of its GDP on health services while the average American can expect to live about 78 years. In other words, when it comes to public health, Israel gets more bang for the buck.

One of the products of Israels heavy public investment in health since its beginning is its fairly unique public health infrastructure. Israels health system relies on four semi-private Health Management Organizations (HMOs) present all over the country (even in smaller and less populated cities and towns) providing health services to every single citizen, insured through social security payroll contributions and an individual mandate. These HMOs, originally founded as health cooperatives, are a legacy of the socialist-oriented ideas and policies that go back to the creation of the state and even before, as do many other things in Israel. The centralized chain of command, which allows all medical facilities in the countryfrom hospitals to small medical facilities in remote townsto respond to a national plan designed at the HMOs headquarters, is part of the secret to implementing a national public health operation such as massive vaccination quickly and efficiently. For a country of relatively small size (Israel has under 9 million citizens), Israel also has an exemplary single electronic medical record system that includes all of the insured citizens and is shared by all HMOsmaking such a vast logistical operation very feasible. Such an interconnected network with presence all over the territory probably wouldnt exist if it would have responded only to profit and private incentives.

Thus, when it comes to understanding the early success andperhaps as importantlythe reason why pharma companies trusted Israel in its ability to implement this massive endeavor, it comes down to its public health system, inherited by those in power today. This system includes the exceptional talent and devotion of Israeli health workers who continue to be at the front lines of this pandemic saving lives day and nightas in every other country in the worldbut also the legacy of decades of public investment in health care, which other rich countries today should regret not having done.

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The secret sauce behind Israels successful COVID-19 vaccination program - Brookings Institution

The effort to vaccinate Americans against COVID-19 has been marked by criticism that doses are being doled out too slowly to prevent additional spread and deaths -- and some experts are calling for a sharply stepped-up national approach.

More than 4.8 million Americans have received their first dose of the two-dose regimen of the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Tuesday morning.

That number represents only a small portion of the more than 15.4 million doses distributed to states so far, leading to questions about what's caused the delay and complaints that the federal government and Operation Warp Speed hasn't done enough to help state vaccination efforts.

Hundreds wait in line at Lakes Park Regional Library to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in Fort Myers, Fla., Dec. 30, 2020.

"The federal plan was to load up, you know, 40 million boxes of IKEA furniture and the states are opening up the box and [saying] 'Oh my god, it says assembly required' that's what's happened, right and so there was never a plan to vaccinate the American people," said Dr. Peter Hotez, Co-Director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Childrens Hospital and Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.

The FDA provided information and fact sheets as a kind of "assembly instructions" on how to prepare the concentrated vaccine doses to be administered and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention supplied educational materials for hospitals, but it is largely up to states and specific facilities to determine how to process and carry out vaccinations and how much they can handle at a time.

Officials with Operation Warp Speed say there is a delay in collecting data from states and the vaccine rollout was slower because of the holidays.

But Hotez and other experts say while the federal government should have taken ownership of vaccination efforts from the beginning, there are changes that could speed up the pace and meet the goal of vaccinating the vast majority of the population needed to stop the spread of the virus through herd immunity. He said vaccinating millions of people in a matter of months requires more infrastructure than sending people to their local hospital or pharmacies, but the federal government can help states and cities open mass vaccination sites able to administer more vaccines every day.

"How are you going to open up RFK Stadium? How are you going to open up FedEx Field now and you're gonna how are you going to open up, where the Nationals play and create a venue, with which we can vaccinate those individuals," he said of how to expand vaccinations in Washington, D.C.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer addresses members of the media during the first day of mass Moderna COVID-19 vaccinations in Broadbent Arena at the Kentucky State Fair and Exposition Center on Jan. 4, 2021 in Louisville.

Hotez said the federal government should also set clear goals on how many people need to be vaccinated each day and put less emphasis on phased eligibility if doing so interferes with that timeline. He said making vaccines available to specific populations or job categories beyond health care workers and nursing home facilities is too fussy and complex.

"There is no thought to how to operationalize that [Phase] 1B, 1C," he said of the next groups recommended to receive the vaccine under CDC guidelines.

"What are you going to do, take a pharmacist at Walmart, and they can make her the gatekeeper for who gets vaccinated and who doesn't? I mean, it doesn't make any sense," he told ABC.

Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Tuesday his message to states is just that, match up supply and demand.

"Your headline today really should be surgeon general tells states and governors to move quickly to other priority groups. If the demand isn't there in 1a, go to 1b and continue on down. If the demand isn't there in one location, move those vaccines to another location," Adams said on NBC's "Today" program.

Adams also endorsed an idea supported by former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb who says there should be more shipments of vaccines going to pharmacies to start vaccinating the populations with the most demand for the vaccine. Adams said there will be more information this week about ramping up vaccination efforts from CVS and Walgreens, both of which are working with Operation Warp Speed.

A woman waits to enter the locations where the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine is being given at the Vista View Park in Davie, Fla., Jan. 2021. At this location only seniors 65 years old and older will receive the vaccine.

Houston reported so much demand for appointments when vaccine doses were made available to older adults that its call center was overwhelmed on the first day. And vaccination sites in Florida are seeing lines of older Americans early in the morning or even camping out overnight to get their vaccines.

"If stockpiles continue to build, eligibility should be expanded. We can move quickly through the prescribed phases of the vaccination program as inventories build and start offering it to the general public based on age, which can be lowered from 75 to 65 and so on. Society has a responsibility to help the most vulnerable, and the collective good depends on maximizing the number of vaccinations. These two goals dont need to be in conflict," he wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

Gottlieb also discussed prioritizing shipping more doses out to states, instead of holding back second doses for people who have already received one. But Hotez said that won't address the slow pace of vaccinations on the ground.

The FDA said this week it doesn't plan to recommend any changes to how the two-dose vaccines should be administered without more research on the potential impact of delaying the second dose.

Dr. Leana Wen, anemergencyphysicianand public health professor at George Washington University who previously worked as Baltimore's Health Commissioner, said the federal government could allocate additional shipments of vaccine doses to cities or parts of the country able to carry out vaccinations quickly as a sort of pilot program to show what works.

"Empower 10 cities, give them a million doses each, or more, to administer within a month period and let's learn from their experience, they're all going to do it differently," she told ABC News.

Wen said there are examples of vaccines being administered quickly, like hospitals in Texas able to give doses to health care workers 24/7 until all employees were vaccinated. But she said there are more examples of a specific bottleneck after vaccines are shipped to locations around the country, partly because of the administrative burden on hospitals and public health officials who are already overwhelmed with the high number of new COVID-19 cases.

Tom, 69, and Judy Barrett, 67, from Marco Island wait in line in the early morning hours at Lakes Park Regional Library to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in Fort Myers, Fla., Dec. 30, 2020.

She said the federal government can help overwhelmed state and local health officials find more staff like retired nurses or medical students to help with scheduling, collecting information, or even administering vaccinations.

"That's something that can be done on a national level, the federal government can say for this period of time for this purpose we are suspending any licensing requirements. We are getting full liability cover for anyone doing vaccinations we are going to work it out with national medical, nursing, and pharmacists associations to do a national recruitment campaign," she said.

But that doesn't mean the federal government should takeover vaccine administration, said John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard University professor. The goal is more to support the states than going around them because its going to create unnecessary conflict if the federal government dictates how its done, said Brownstein, an ABC contributor.Brownstein said he sees the federal governments role as ensuring states have enough staff to give injections and helping to set up sites for mass vaccinations. Wen said states or the federal government could activate resources like the National Guard but officials tell ABC their role is likely to be more in helping with logistics like setting up vaccination sites or transporting vaccine shipments to rural areas.

A National Guard official told ABC News that guardsmen and women are less likely to be called on to administer vaccines because that would take medical troops away from their roles as civilian health care providers in their communities.

It's also unlikely a large federal activation of the National Guard will be necessary since governors can tap them for more specific needs at any time. At least seven states have mobilized National Guard units for administrative or logistical support on vaccination efforts. The government also can help support the deployment of online tools like Vaccine Finder, a system developed by Google to deploy the H1N1 vaccine. Brownstein, who runs Vaccine Finder, hopes the site will play a role in people to determine their personal eligibility for the COVID-19 vaccine based on location and availability.

A nurse with the Riley County Health Department walks past the COVID-19 vaccine mobile command center in the parking lot of Bill Snyder Family Stadium at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, Dec. 22, 2010. The Moderna Vaccine arrived in Riley County on Dec. 22.

The incoming Biden administration has named several people to lead the high-profile areas of pandemic response, including vaccinations and testing, under a White House coordinator for all aspects of the response, Jeff Zeints.

Zeints has said "everything is on the table" for the Biden takeover of COVID-19 response in an interview with an opinion writer for the Washington Post, including using federal units to transport vaccines to more rural areas, using the Defense Production Act to increase manufacturing of vaccine components, and providing more money for state and local vaccination efforts.

Wen said one thing she will look for from the Biden administration is whether the federal government takes ultimate responsibility for all aspects of the process for the COVID-19 vaccines, saying "the buck has to stop with someone."

"Ultimately, while the implementation is going to be done on the ground the ultimate responsibility has to be with the federal government because this is a federal, this is a wartime effort that requires a national mobilization," she said.

ABC News' Matthew Seyler and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

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How experts say the federal government can speed up COVID-19 vaccinations - ABC News

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How Some Locals Skipped To The Front Of The COVID-19 Vaccine Line - DCist

In an extraordinary time, British health authorities are taking extraordinary measures to beat back Covid-19. But some experts say that, in doing so, they are also taking a serious gamble.

In recent days, the British have said they will stretch out the interval between the administration of the two doses required for Covid-19 vaccines already in use potentially to as long as three months, instead of the recommended three or four weeks. And they have said they will permit the first dose and second dose for any one person to be from different vaccine manufacturers, if the matching vaccine is not available.

The moves are borne of a desire to begin vaccinating as many people as quickly as possible, particularly with Britain facing high levels of transmission of an apparently more infectious form of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

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But they are also effectively turning that country into a living laboratory. The moves are based on small slices of evidence mined from subsets of subsets of participants in clinical trials, as one expert described it for STAT, and on general principles of vaccinology rather than on actual research into the specific vaccines being used. If the efforts succeed, the world will have learned a great deal. If they fail, the world will also have gained important information, though some fear it could come at a high cost.

American health officials have dismissed the possibility that the U.S. would follow Britains lead, with Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, saying the vaccines in use one made by Moderna, the other by the Pfizer and BioNTech partnership will be deployed here using the schedules that were tested in Phase 3 trials that generated the evidence on which the Food and Drug Administration authorized the vaccines for emergency use.

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While data from both suggest the vaccines start to protect about 10 or 12 days after the first dose, its not known how long that initial protection lasts. In clinical trials, levels of neutralizing antibodies, which are thought to play a critical role in protecting against infection, were not substantial after the first dose of vaccine for the Pfizer vaccine.

While we think that single shot could give protection for more than four weeks, we just dont know that. We dont know when its going to drop off, said John Mascola, director of NIAIDs Vaccine Research Center. Mascola said Operation Warp Speed, the federal governments project to fast-track Covid vaccines, ruled out the possibility of altering vaccination schedules before Britain decided to do so.

Paul Bieniasz of Rockefeller University is one of those who is watching the evolving situation in Britain with dread. A retrovirologist who turned from HIV research to work on SARS-2, Bieniasz is studying how the virus acquires mutations that allow it to evade the protective antibodies people develop when they have contracted Covid-19, or when they have been vaccinated against it.

Bieniasz believes Britain is replicating in people the experiments hes been doing in his lab and could be fostering vaccine-resistant forms of the virus.

On New Years Day he posted a short, sarcastic treatise Musings of an anonymous, pissed off virologist on Twitter outlining how one could go about rendering Covid vaccines impotent, if that was ones goal. Giving millions of people who are at daily risk of contracting the disease incomplete protection by delaying the second dose of vaccine was key, he suggested.

My concern, as a virologist, is that if you wanted to make a vaccine-resistant strain, what you would do is to build a cohort of partially immunized individuals in the teeth of a highly prevalent viral infection, Bieniasz told STAT. Even rolling out the vaccine at all when there is so much transmission occurring is far from ideal, he said, suggesting it would have been safer to beat down the amount of virus in circulation before beginning the vaccine deployment.

You are essentially maximizing the opportunity for the virus to learn about the human immune system. Learn about antibodies. Learn how to evade them, he said.

Isabella Eckerle, a coronavirus researcher at the Geneva Center for Emerging Viral Diseases, shares Bieniaszs concern that Britain is increasing the potential for so-called escape mutants. She understands the public health imperative behind its approach, but worries about having large numbers of partially protected people for several months at a stretch. Britain is vaccinating its oldest citizens first. The immune systems of the elderly dont function as well as those of younger adults; some will inevitably contract Covid while waiting for their second dose of vaccine, she said.

Reports of partially vaccinated people contracting Covid may also erode confidence in the vaccines, Eckerle said: If we fail to use this vaccine in a good way, it will damage the whole field of vaccinology for many, many years, I think.

Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah who specializes in coronaviruses, said that taking Britains approach at a time of limited supply of vaccine could create other problems.

If we vaccinate everybody with one dose and six weeks later, the efficacy is now like 30% and we dont have the doses to boost them at that point because weve used up their second doses on another round of first doses, its a disaster potentially, he said.

Not everyone agrees there is a disaster in the making. Some believe it makes sense, given Britains surge in cases and the rapid spread there of the B.1.1.7 variant, which studies suggest may be 50% more transmissible than the viruses it is quickly replacing.

At the core of my being, I really wish that we could adhere to the original schedule of vaccines, because thats the safest thing to do, said Akiko Iwasaki, a virologist and immunologist at Yale University who tweeted about her support for the British approach. But seeing whats happening in the world and just sort of looking at the situation of poor rollout and distribution, Im feeling frustrated that we need to come up with some other options.

(Iwasaki was dismayed, though, to realize Britains instructions to clinicians that they could use a non-matching second dose of vaccine if that is their only option was not going to be done in the context of a clinical trial. While there is reason to believe boosting with a different type of vaccine might actually be useful in some cases particularly if the first dose is a vaccine like the AstraZeneca vaccine that uses a harmless virus onto which genetic material from SARS-2 has been fused the approach has not been studied at all in clinical trials.

Theyre kind of wasting the opportunity if theyre just sort of randomly doing it and not even following up on the effectiveness of that combination, Iwasaki said. So yeah, Im a lot more comfortable if it was a trial of some sort.)

Rajeev Venkayya, president of global vaccines for Takeda Pharmaceuticals, also believes Britains decision to stretch out the interval between vaccine doses is justifiable.

Of course we would all want to see vaccines used exactly as they were tested in Phase 3 efficacy trials. I dont think theres any debate about that. The question is: Do you have evidence to support flexibility? And here, I do think that and this is specific to the AstraZeneca vaccine it does appear that there is additional evidence that can support a modified recommendation, said Venkayya, who served as special assistant to President George W. Bush and senior director for biodefense. In that role, Venkayya was the White House point person for pandemic preparedness efforts triggered by the spread of H5N1 bird flu.

While the U.S.-based trial of the AstraZeneca vaccine is testing two doses given four weeks apart, studies the company conducted elsewhere gave some participants the two doses at intervals of six to eight weeks, or nine to 11 weeks, and some received the doses at an interval greater than 12 weeks.

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are the first using mRNA technology, and the companies did not study those extended dosing schedules. Pfizer has objected to the proposal that the vaccine be used with a longer interval between vaccinations.

Venkayya, whose thinking is influenced by his years in the White House, said sometimes policy has to be made without perfect data.

I think that to take the standards that we typically apply to the body of evidence we require before reaching decisions and recommendations on how to use vaccines, that by necessity has to change in the midst of a crisis like this, he said. I think there is the way we do medicine and public health in peacetime where we have the luxury of taking the time we need and investing the resources and effort to collect enough data to reach a conclusion. You just dont have that luxury in the midst of a crisis.

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Britain gambles on Covid-19 vaccines, upping the stakes for the rest of us - STAT