The first coronavirus vaccine shots administered across the country have raised hopes for a breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19, but experts are now raising an even more hopeful possibility: that people might only need one shot instead of the current two-dose regimen.
The prospect would effectively double the number of vaccine doses available and allow more people to be vaccinated quickly. But the idea has set off a debate, with experts saying there isn’t enough evidence yet to justify a single dose and people should plan to get two doses.
The push in favor of exploring the idea of a single-dose vaccine crystallized with a recent New York Times op-ed from Michael Mina, an immunologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Zeynep Tufecki, a sociologist who has written extensively on the pandemic.
They called for immediately starting a new clinical trial to study whether one dose of the vaccine is sufficient. They cited data from the trials already conducted for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that showed protection began after the first dose, with as much as around 90 percent efficacy, compared to around 95 percent efficacy after two doses.
There are questions about how long protection will last without the second, booster dose, but Mina and Tufecki wrote the possibility of needing just one dose should be immediately studied.
Read more at The Hill.
{Matzav.com}
