The vaccine directions are to administer 2 doses spaced three weeks apart to achieve ninety-five percent prevention effectiveness against coronavirus, said Pfizer just one month ago. One dose protects only fifty percent in prevention effectiveness, according to FDA regulators.
Gov. Ron DeSantis just a few days ago said that Americans need to unify behind the science that has led to the rapid development of vaccines. So it was a bit strange that DeSantis on Friday said that perhaps the number of Florida residents who receive COVID-19 vaccinations could be boosted — by not following Pfizer Inc.’s recommended instructions for its vaccine candidate.
The federal government is imminently expected to announce its approval of Pfizer’s vaccine candidate and, within 24 hours of approval, begin shipping the vaccine to Florida and other states. DeSantis said Florida will receive less of the supply than what was initially anticipated, so he came up with a possible way to stretch out the state’s inoculations.
Instead of giving two doses, as recommended by the pharmaceutical manufacturer, to high-risk populations such as nursing home residents and front-line hospital workers, perhaps one dose could do, the Governor suggested Friday.
DeSantis pointed to an article in The Wall Street Journal — it was an opinion piece written by neuroscientist Michael Segal — about the efficacy of the one-dose approach. DeSantis referred to the second dose as a “booster” shot, echoing Segal’s choice of words.
“Just get as many doses out there,” the Governor said during a mental-health roundtable in Tampa on Friday. “I’m not sure that Pfizer would agree or FDA would agree, but I think just the point is, getting that first does out really does make a difference, and I think you’ll see that.”
(emphasis mine)
According to the Centers for Disease Control, there is only one candidate in the pipeline where a single dose is sufficient, and that would be from Johnson and Johnson.
DeSantis has not been honest with Floridians about this virus from day one. Just like his idol, Trump, misled the entire nation starting on day one. There is a reason Governor DeSantis has been nicknamed DeathSantis.
People who get one of the new COVID-19 vaccines will be expected to get their second shot 21 or 28 days after the first one, depending on the manufacturer. But what happens if someone misses that deadline by a day, a week or even longer?
"There is the regulatory answer and there is the scientific observation," Moncef Slaoui, co-leader of Operation Warp Speed, the federal government's vaccine development effort, said in a Wednesday news conference.
Regulators are likely to authorize both vaccines – one likely within the next four days and the other a week later – with the expectation that people receive them on the schedule by which they were tested in clinical trials. The vaccine made by Pfizer/BioNTech is to be given in two doses 21 days apart, while Moderna's vaccine was studied with the two doses coming 28 days apart.
Two Florida newspapers are suing DeSantis because he does not provide information on the contagion flagged as code red data from the White House Taskforce.