US Officials Consider Giving Half Doses of Moderna Vaccine to Give More People Immunity

The U.S. government is thinking of giving people half doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in order to speed up inoculations, a federal official said on Sunday.

Moncef Slaoui, head of federal vaccine program Operation Warp Speed, the federal vaccine program, told CBS's "Face the Nation" that officials from both Moderna and the Food and Drug administration are already looking into the idea of giving half doses.

Moderna has to give two injections for their vaccine to be effective, but Slaoui argued that by giving half doses, the number of people who will gain immunity from it will be doubled.

He also noted that the half dose of only 50 micrograms will induce an "identical immune response" to the full 100 microgram dose, reported Reuters.

The usage of half dosages will apply to those aged 18 to 55 years old, said a report from Politico.

The final decision on the matter will lie on the FDA but it has not yet been reached for comment, along with Moderna.

Slaoui Said Splitting Vaccine Doses 'Based on Facts'

During the interview, Slaoui said the prospect of splitting up Moderna vaccine doses was "based on facts and data to immunize more people."

He added that even though doses may be split in half, manufacturing vaccine doses would still continue.

Since Saturday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had already administered some four million first doses of COVID-19 vaccines and has also distributed more than 13 milllion.

The first vaccine to start distribution was Pfizer/BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine. It also requires two shots to be considered fully effective.

US Falling Behind in Vaccine Doses

Reports of the possible splitting of doses came as news outlets noted that the country has been lagging behind in its promise to deliver vaccines.

The government's initial goal for the end of 2020 was to vaccinate 20 million Americans, but that was not met and is actually far off.

About 80 percent of the U.S. population would have to be vaccinated for the country to start seeing the effects of herd immunity.

With more than 20 million cases of the virus and 350,000 related deaths recorded so far, officials are looking into more ways to ramp up production and distribution of vaccines.

One of the other tactics to vaccinate more people, as seen in Britain was delaying the administration of the first vaccine dose so a larger chunk of the population gets doses.

But Slaoui pointed out that the U.S. is unlikely to take this route since there was little to no data that dose delays would be helpful in immunizing the population, reported Seattle Times.

CNBC also said the Operation Warp Speed head was hesitant to take on an approach that was not supported by the trial data.

For him, injecting half the dosage might be a "more responsible approach that will be based on facts and data to immunize more people."

Slaoui remains optimistic that vaccinations would continue to ramp up distribution.

He also said it might take until late spring before people start feeling the effects of vaccination and whether it can stop the spread of the disease to others.