Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday announced that the city may have to delay administering a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccines by two weeks due to limited supply.
This has been the subject of much debate amongst scientists around the globe: Is it wisest to hold back the second doses everyone will need, or to give as many people as possible an inoculation now — and push back the second doses until later?
Since even the first shot appears to provides 50% protection against Covid-19, some experts believe that the shortest route to containing the virus is to disseminate the initial injections as widely as possible now.
Many others were adamantly not in favor of doing that. Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday he was “concerned” that delaying the second dose of COVID-19 vaccines could risk the spread of mutated coronavirus variants.
“You don’t get full efficacy until you get the second dose, and if you allow suboptimal efficacy, you can actually immunologically select for mutations,” Fauci, speaking on a virtual World Economic Forum panel.
Vaccine Updates begin 19 Min into this mornings briefing, see below:
Join us at City Hall. https://t.co/aRiByGDJVC
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) January 26, 2021
According to the mayor, the city has administered 650,546 total doses with only 7,710 doses on hand as of this morning, he said.
