By the end of the year, the United States government hopes to have close to 40 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
It plans to distribute half of those in December and hold back the other half to give the same people their second dose of the two-shot regimen.
But Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a Pfizer board member and former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner, says that's a bad idea. Instead, Gottlieb says he would give out 35 million doses now, and presume the second doses will be available when people need them.
That way, he says, a lot more people can be protected as the U.S. endures the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We should get as many shots in our arms as possible right away,” he told the USA TODAY Editorial Board on Monday. “The idea that we need to cut (the doses) in half and give half of it now and hold onto it, so we have supply in January to get the second dose … I just fundamentally disagree with that.”
As the U.S. continues to suffer from a surge with nearly 200,000 new cases each day, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins data, Gottlieb says the government should focus on vaccinating as many people as possible with first doses. He anticipates another 40 million doses should be ready in time for the second shot of the two-dose regimen.
The inability to do so would indicate a manufacturing process problem exceeding that of people not getting their second dose on schedule, he argues.
“I don’t think we should be holding onto supply now, anticipating something goes wrong that’s going to cause a lot of other challenges,” said Gottlieb. “We should be taking some risk.”
Arthur Caplan, professor and founding head of the division of medical ethics at the NYU School of Medicine in New York City, agrees.