Jerome Adams, Trump’s Surgeon General, Questions Advice on Getting 2 Covid-19 Vaccines

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Next, Surgeon General Jerome Adams addresses the media outside the White House on December 21, 2020 in Washington, DC

Former U.S. surgeon general Dr Jerome Adams questioned the Biden administration’s current guidance on obtaining Covid-19 vaccines for Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines on Monday – which have been tested and licensed under in the form of a two-dose regimen spaced a few weeks apart. – to at least provide some immediate protection to more Americans.

“Good protection for many (with 1 photo) is better than good protection for a few. 2000 people a day die because they can’t get a first # covid19, not because they can’t get a second, “Adams wrote in a Twitter feed. In another tweet, Adams wrote: “Push all the doses NOW and go into production!”

Adams included a link to an article published Monday by the Washington Post in which Dr.Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to the Biden administration, said the United States United had to stick to one dose in two doses. regimen for Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.

Fauci told the newspaper there were “risks on both sides” of switching to a single dose or sticking to both.

“We tell people [two shots] should you do … and then we say, “Oops, we’ve changed our mind”? “said the leading disease specialist.” I think that would be a messaging challenge, to say the least. “

Adams sought to clarify his comments on Tuesday.

“I’m not saying it’s [100 emoji] the right way forward. I say there is enough data / evidence to suggest this is not the case [100 emoji] the wrong way to go – and with 2,000 (unvaccinated) people dying every day, it’s worth giving states a chance to try it out. ” tweeted.

Fauci brushed off Adam’s comments on Wednesday, telling CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront” that if he respects Adams, “I think he’s wrong on that,” in light of variants of the virus that reduce the efficacy of the vaccine.

“If you look at the antibody level after the second dose, it’s 10 times higher,” Fauci said, using the Pfizer vaccine as an example. “So when you’re dealing with variants that decrease the effectiveness of these vaccine-induced antibodies somewhat, sometimes five times, you can bring it down to … well in the protective range because you have a lot of. cushion.”

Meanwhile, by only getting one dose, Fauci continued, “you don’t know how long lasting it is, if it’s just going to go out and go down in about a month or so. But most importantly, you are at a very high level, thin level – good enough to provide protection, but if you lower it by five times you fall out of the protection chart, so it’s really very risky when trying to deal with variants which we know exist. “

In a context of low vaccine supply, a number of experts have advocated delaying second doses in order to get more people on their first one, and some research has suggested a high degree of temporary protection from a single dose. . However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and senior U.S. officials rebuffed this, saying the duration of this protection was unclear and arguing the need to stick to evidence from clinical trials.

In a discussion about vaccines on Monday at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting, experts said two doses better protect people against the coronavirus variants. only one dose. U.S. health officials fear the spread of more infectious variants could delay the country in its fight to bring the pandemic under control.

Even though the Pfizer and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines have been tested as a two-dose regimen, the UK has decided to delay second doses to get more first doses to more people faster.

Over the weekend, the FDA cleared Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine. The J&J vaccine is also currently being tested as a two-dose vaccine.

This story has been updated with additional comments from Dr.Anthony Fauci.