Going to a single dose would undermine the last remaining credibility of OpWarpSpeed. If you look at the published data it’s only 2 doses for both mRNA vaccines that provide reasonable virus neutralizing antibodies. And it’s only 2 doses that protect apple.news/AM61Z3Q8wTyuym…
Asking the American 🇺🇸 people to compromise their safety and protection because no one thought that we needed a health system to provide high throughput vaccinations is unacceptable. We have to stop being so mediocre, and do hard things. Under Trump we became a nation of wimps
We now need to implement a health system that can vaccinate 1.5 million Americans every day from now until the fall. We need leaders who welcome challenges and like to roll up sleeves. Not lazy feckless ones who are frightened by science textbooks
2 full doses. The problem is not vaccine production or at least not in a few weeks. The problem is no one bothered to do the calculations to know what it takes to vaccinate the American 🇺🇸 people. So figure it out, open football stadiums, approve adeno vaccines, get ours into US
And stop with the mediocre half-baked post hoc analyses. If you are bored or feeling unstimulated, read a book, watch a movie, or learn to play chess
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This may be the right direction, in fact our recombinant protein vaccine might be a great booster. Problem is this: Zero experimental evidence. While it’s something I’ve suggested in lab meetings, zoom calls, without actual data in hand it’s a non-starter nytimes.com/2021/01/01/hea…
Op Warp Speed delivered vaccines, but they went heavy in the direction of new technologies oblivious to a reality that we don’t have a health system in place to deliver them high throughput. We’re opening 40 million IKEA boxes, just now reading the “assembly required”stickers
It’s why we pushed for our low cost, easy to deliver recombinant protein vaccines now being scaled for production and tested across India 🇮🇳 , a 40 year old well tested technology, safe for use in kids.
Texas hospitals have received over 600,000 doses yet only about 100,000 vaccinated so far? These aren’t bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon. We don’t need age vaccines, are we overthinking this? Texas 1b lots of adults with underlying conditions, vaccinate them houstonchronicle.com/news/article/T…
There’s no reason to hang on to vaccine stocks (except for second doses), just move them out and get people vaccinated ASAP. More vaccine is coming
Maybe I’m too subtle. So here it goes: 1. In 2020 we royally messed up COVID19 control, failing to launch a US strategy causing 350,000 deaths 2. By failing, we backed ourselves into a corner 3. Our last hope is to now vaccinate our way out of this. 4. Ignore antivax conspiracies
THREAD 1/5: I know this is not very nice just a couple of days before Christmas but I have to say I'm concerned about the CDC press release today, and the status our virus genomics surveillance program SPHERE
THREAD 2/5: Here's the statement: "Given the small fraction of US infections that have been sequenced, the variant could already be in the United States without having been detected"
THREAD 3/5: And this one: "The VOC 202012/01 variant has not been identified through sequencing efforts in the United States, although viruses have only been sequenced from about 51,000 of the 17 million US cases"
1/5: Many thanks @EricaRHill @JohnBerman for hosting me on @NewDay: I voiced strong opinions this AM on how to proceed regarding the emergence of the the SARS CoV2 variant B.1.1.7. Bottom line: Not a question of opinion, it’s an evidence based decision
2/5: Over the Summer the CDC launched SPHERES, a virus genomics sequencing consortium, a similar approach led the UK to discover variant 1.1.1.7. We should therefore already know if the new variant has entered the country. cdc.gov/coronavirus/20…
3/5: My expectation is that by COB today, the CDC will inform the American people: 1) If indeed the virus has entered the US, 2) its extent, where and if it's outcompeting other virus strains, 3) epidemiologic models showing how quickly it is expected to spread, and...
2/4: Also with mixed emotions X3. 1. Sadness & Grief: Reflecting on the 300,000 Americans who lost their lives from #COVID19. Those who never had this opportunity, because our nation could never organize a national plan roadmap. How I tried to push WH to implement an Oct 1 Plan
3/4: Gratitude: Thankful to @pfizer@BioNTech_Group and to the leadership of OpWarpSpeed, including our @HHSGov agencies: @US_FDA@CDCgov and to the @NIH supporting more than a decade of R&D on coronavirus vaccines including ours now being produced and tested in India 🇮🇳
Many thanks @AymanM hosting me @MSNBC on this first full day of #covid19 vaccination in America. I explained why the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is both effect and safe and = the culmination of 17 years of R&D from a community of CoV virologists including our group
The vaccine then went through a rigorous phase 1 and 2 trials, showing that we need to 2 doses to get the virus 🦠 neutralizing antibodies up, and then a large 44,000 person phase 3 trial equivalent in size to any typical vaccine trial in the US
After that it will go through rigorous post EUA monitoring through VAERS VSD and additional FDA and CDC monitoring.