Feb 2, 2021
The COVID-19 vaccination scheduling procedures have changed significantly this past week for the USA, Mexico, EU & UK.

As the vaccine manufacturers are falling behind on delivering their promised doses of COVID-19 vaccines,  national health officials have been faced with the dilemma of using the scarce doses of vaccine to vaccinate more elderly patients with their 1’st dose, which reduces the numbers of doses available to elderly people currently waiting for their 2’nd dose.

To accomodate these changes, on last Friday, the US Govt’s head of vaccination efforts announced they would be shifting to vaccinating more elderly people with their first dose of COVID-19, and as such would stop holding vaccine doses in reserve for people waiting for their second vaccine dose.   In this updated system, govt. officials are hoping-planning  that vaccine manufacturers will ramp-up currently-slow production of vaccine doses, to create enough additional future doses, to get EVERYONE their second vaccine dose-jab by at least DAY 42 AFTER their first dose.

These planned changes pair very nicely with the latest Lancet report on the Sputnik V vaccine that is reporting very very good protection (up to 92% efficacy), with epecially good protection after just the first dose. **

In that context, the USA’s CDC (last week) also updated their recommendations to report that it’s okay to space out the first and second doses of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines by up to 42 days, “as needed”.

This CDC announcement does not fit the manufacturer’s official COVID-19 regulatory labels.  The manufacturer’s official package inserts say that doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine should be spaced 21 days apart, and Moderna vaccine 2’nd dose is reported to be injected 28 days after the first dose.

Per Last Week’s CDC Update:
“However, if it is not feasible to adhere to the recommended interval, the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines may be scheduled for administration up to 6 weeks (42 days) after the first dose.” per the CDC.   Compably, the UK’s govt officials also said it’s acceptable to space out doses of its authorized vaccines, which include the AstraZeneca- Oxford vaccine, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and Moderna vaccine.

As of Sunday, Feb. 1, 2021, Mexican Govt. health officials concurred with the decision to delay the 2’nd vaccine doses up to 42 days after the first jabs.

* * * * * * * 

• ** There are some good updates on the Sputnik V vaccine, including a Lancet report describing 92% efficacies and low adverse reaction rates.   The Lancet report pairs nicely with the positive news from Argentina, where they have given 300,000 Sputnik V vaccine doses. … Fortunately, the Sputnik V vaccine has several (4) advantages over the other vaccines.
  
  1. The Sputnik V COVID vaccine uses the safest, longest proven vehicle for delivering their vaccine, by using the proven-safe adeno-virus vehicle to deliver their COVID-19 vaccine’s active ingredients.
   
  This is in contrast with Moderna & Pfizer that use the totally new, never-before-used m-RNA vehicle to deliver their COVID vaccines active ingredients.
   
  2. The Sputnik V vaccine uses past-proven active ingredients in their vaccine … versus the new, never-before used approaches of Pfizer & Moderna:
   
  Sputnik V is based on the virus’s genetic instructions for building the spike protein. Unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, which store the instructions in single-stranded RNA, Sputnik V uses double-stranded DNA.
   
  3. The Sputnik V vaccine is showing far fewer allergic reactions and fewer adverse reactions than the Pfizer vaccines 2.5% adverse reactions in Pfizer’s first 1.8 million patients vaccinated … because Pfizer chose to include known allergy-causing ingredients of PEG and nanoparticles.
  
  4.  “Vaccine efficacy, based on the numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases from 21 days after the first dose of vaccine, is reported as 91·6% (95% CI 85·6–95·2), and the suggested lessening of disease severity after one dose is particularly encouraging for current dose-sparing strategies.”  (per the latest Lancet report)
  
  https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00191-4/fulltext
  
  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/health/gamaleya-covid-19-vaccine.html
  

  
  
  Dr. Steven Michael Fry,
  Ph.D. in Chemistry, Public Health, Measurement Science, & Aerosol Science

Additional COVID Vaccine Updates can be read at:

COVID Vaccine Updates & Answers to Questions

and 

USA Requires a Negative COVID Viral Test Result after Jan. 26, 2021 – List of Approved Merida Labs