and University of Pennsylvania emeritus professor of pediatrics Dr. Stanley Plotkin are among those who say the US should vaccinate more people more quickly.
"At this point, it's clearly an insufficient supply for the larger population," Plotkin told Business Insider. "If we insist on two doses, that will mean we'll be vaccinating half as many people as if we use one dose."Because the strategy remains untested, both Plotkin and Offit emphasized how difficult it is to measure the effectiveness rates of a single dose over a period of several weeks.
"The safety and efficacy of the vaccine has not been evaluated on different dosing schedules as the majority of trial participants received the second dose within the window specified in the study design," Pfizer and BioNTech said.The nuance of measuring vaccine effectiveness is particularly crucial toin the vaccine. Too many changes in strategy with mixed messages have already undermined the public's trust in the vaccine, an issue health officials have been working to combat.
Even so, the benefit of providing people some protection far outweighs the risk, according to Plotkin. That protection could help the UK and US control the pandemic, Plotkin said in a letter to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials and other public health experts overseeing the US coronavirus response. He shared a copy with Business Insider.
The bet isn't risky until government is playing it on the lives of common men