The U.S. government is considering giving some people half the dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine to speed up vaccinations, a federal official said Sunday.
Moncef Slaoui, head of Operation Warp Speed, the federal vaccination program, said on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ that officials were in talks with Moderna and the Food and Drug Administration about the idea. Moderna’s vaccine requires two injections.
This would mean that people aged 18 to 55 would receive half the current amount in each of the first and second doses.
Slaoui said, quoting “We know it elicits identical immune response”, noting that it would ultimately be up to the FDA to make such a decision.
Modern and the FDA could not be immediately reached for comment.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they had administered more than 4 million first-dose COVID-19 vaccines in the country and distributed more than 13 million doses as of Saturday morning.
The US has also approved a Pfizer vaccine, which, like Moderna’s, requires two shots. Vaccinations fell far short of early targets, as officials had hoped by the end of 2020 to get 20 million people vaccinated.
Video transcription
– The U.S. government is considering giving some people half the dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine to speed up vaccinations, a federal official said Sunday. Moncef Slaoui, head of Operation Warp Speed, the federal vaccine program, said on CBS ‘”Face the Nation” that officials are in talks with the Moderna and the Food and Drug Administration about the idea. Moderna’s vaccine requires two injections.
This would mean that people aged 18 to 55 would receive half the current amount in each of the first and second doses. Slaoui said, quoting “We know it elicits identical immune response”, noting that it would ultimately be up to the FDA to make such a decision. Modern and the FDA could not be immediately reached for comment.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they had administered more than four million first-dose COVID-19 vaccines in the country as of Saturday morning, and distributed more than 13 million doses. The US has also approved a Pfizer vaccine, which, like Moderna’s, requires two shots. Vaccinations did not reach the early targets, as officials had hoped by the end of 2020 to get 20 million people vaccinated.