Al Drago/CQ Roll Call
- Doctors should stop reserving doses needed for second shots, Andy Slavitt, a Biden official said.
- Slavitt promised states will have “a continual 3-week window in the vaccines that will be shipped.”
- Providers have canceled appointments for first doses while they hold back the reserved vaccines.
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Some doctors have been regularly reserving doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to ensure patients can get their second dose on time, but the Biden administration has warned against doing so.
In a Monday briefing, Andy Slavitt, a senior advisor on the Biden COVID response team, said while he understands why doctors are trying to ensure patients can get their second shot, the practice is causing providers to cancel appointments with patients waiting to receive the first dose.
“We completely understand that this has been a direct result of the lack of predictability many states and providers have had regarding how many doses that they would receive,” Slavitt said in the briefing. “That’s one reason why last week we announced that the federal government will be providing a continual three-week window in the vaccines that will be shipped.”
The added predictability, he said, would allow doctors to more quickly and equitably vaccinate patients with their first dose. The practice of reserving vaccines, he said, “does not need to happen and should not happen.”
When President Joe Biden took office in January, he promised to get 100 million vaccine doses to patients in the first hundred days. He later increased his promise of 1 million doses administered per day to 1.5 million doses. He also ramped up purchases of the vaccines, one from Pfizer and BioNTech and the other from Moderna. The increased supply would allow 300 million Americans to be vaccinated with either of the two-dose vaccines by the end of the summer.
Another vaccine may soon be available to Americans as well. Johnson and Johnson released results of its single-dose vaccine last week, which showed a 72% efficacy at curbing symptomatic COVID-19 infections in the US. Though the the rate is lower than Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which are more than 94% effective, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine would be easier to manufacture, store, and administer, if the FDA grants emergency approval for the treatment.