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The United States should expand eligibility for the coronavirus vaccine to ensure more Americans receive vaccines in the coming weeks, Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC on Monday.
“Right now every hit in an arm is a win,” Gottlieb said on “Squawk Box”.
The United States is a long way from reaching its 2020 end-of-year goal of vaccinating 20 million people against Covid-19. While about 13.1 million doses have been delivered to states as of Jan. 2, only about 4.23 million Americans have actually received their initial dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Moderna and Pfizer’s vaccines, the only vaccines authorized in the United States for emergency use, both require two doses a few weeks apart.
Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and current member of Pfizer’s board of directors, said the federal government should stockpile fewer doses, instead of continuing the current policy of withholding about half of the available supply. to ensure people get their second injection.
Due to the intensity of the current Covid-19 outbreak, with some hospital systems under strain and thousands of Americans dying from the disease every week, Gottlieb said the priority should be to roll out as many initial doses as possible. “We know that getting vaccines in guns can be a partial safety net against continued spread,” he added.
“I think people should get the second dose. They should get the second dose largely on time, but we can launch more early doses now and use the future supply that will hit the market in January to administer some of it. of these second doses, ”he said, referring to plans by vaccine manufacturers to continuously increase supply in 2021.
“You have to store something if you want to make sure the transition to the second doses goes smoothly, but I think putting away 50% of all the doses is denying more people access to a vaccine.” , noted Gottlieb, who led the FDA from 2017 to 2019 in the Trump administration.
At the same time, he acknowledged that one of the potential reasons why fewer Americans have been vaccinated than expected is reluctance to receive the vaccine among priority groups of people, such as staff at health facilities. long-term care. For example, Republican Governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, said last week that about 60% of nursing home workers in the state refused to be vaccinated.
Besides those who live and work in long-term care facilities, health workers were also given priority during the initial deployment. Last month, a CDC advisory committee recommended that “essential front-line workers” and those 75 and older be next as supply becomes more available.
However, states have the ability to define who is eligible to receive the vaccine, and some like Texas and Florida have already announced that they will change the CDC’s guidelines for the second group. In Texas, for example, priority will be given to people 65 years of age and older as well as those with certain underlying medical conditions.
Gottlieb said he believes states should be willing to expand eligibility, including making the vaccine available at retail pharmacies, as it’s important for Americans at high risk to have access during what he called “the worst part of this epidemic right now”.
“If we have a group of Americans who we know want the vaccine very badly and would take it quickly and also happen to be at the greatest risk for a poor Covid result – and I am thinking in particular of the elderly in that country – I would just give it to them, ”Gottlieb said.
“I would generally make it available to them, if possible, while we focus on those priority groups. I am not saying ignore this mission, ”he said. “It’s a very important public health mission, but we shouldn’t be spending three weeks trying to push vaccines around where you have some reluctance when we know these vaccines are off the shelf and built on. the shelf.
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the board of directors of Pfizer, a genetic testing start-up Tempus and biotechnology company Illumina. He is also co-chair of the Healthy Sail Panel for Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean.
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