Trump administration reverses stance, will no longer hold back second shots of coronavirus vaccine - The Washington Post

The Trump administration will announce sweeping changes to its vaccination rollout on Tuesday, including making many more doses of the coronavirus vaccine available and urging states to provide shots to anyone 65 and older.

The Trump administration has been holding back roughly half the vaccines to ensure sufficient supply for people to get a required second shot.

Administration officials will also recommend that the vaccines be made available to anyone 65 and over, and to adults who have a preexisting condition that puts them at greater risk for severe illness, sharply increasing the number of people who will be eligible for the shots, according to Axios and confirmed by the administration official.

The decisions to overhaul the vaccine distribution program were made in two meetings held by leadership of Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s efforts to develop and distribute vaccines and therapeutics, over the weekend as officials searched for ways to speed up a sluggish rollout, the official said.

During the two Warp Speed meetings, which included officials from the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, data showed that vaccine administration has been slowed because states and health-care providers are adhering too rigidly to guidance about priority groups while manufacturing has steadily increased, the official said.

Nearly 40 million doses are available to states now, the official said.

Going forward, each week, the doses available will be released to first cover the needed second doses and then cover additional first vaccinations.”.

The Warp Speed plan is to release “a steady cadence for second shots and new additional first shots,” the official said.

While officials with the federal Warp Speed vaccine effort have always described the decision to reserve second doses as a temporary strategy, they had not said when they planned to alter it.

The administration has repeatedly defended its practice of holding back 50 percent of the vaccine supply, saying it is critical to ensure that everyone who gets a first shot is guaranteed a second one at the right time, even if manufacturing problems were to disrupt supply.

Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines — the only two coronavirus vaccines that have been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration — were shown in clinical trials this year to be highly effective when administered in a two-shot regimen.