US Vice President-elect Kamala Harris received the first dose of the Moderna vaccine against Covid-19 on Tuesday, a week after Joe Biden, the President-elect was given the Pfizer vaccine, both vaccines manufactured in the United States.
The US Food and Drug Administration has given emergency use authorization (EUA) for these two Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, as both have shown similar efficacy levels of near 95 per cent, and require two doses to be administered three to four weeks apart. Each dose of Pfizer's contains 30 micrograms of vaccine but the vaccine by Moderna is three time more at 100 micrograms.
Harris was vaccinated Tuesday evening by Patricia Cummings, a clinical nurse manager at the United Medical Center. After receving the Moderna vaccine, Kamala Harris tweeted: "Today I got the Covid-19 vaccine... When you're able to take the vaccine, get it."
Earlier on Dec. 22, Joe Biden, 78, was administered the Pfizer BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, which requires a second dose weeks apart to reach 98 per cent efficacy. Biden, who is considered in the high-risk age category for Covid-19, got inoculated after top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci strongly recommended that he do so. Fauci has been named Biden's chief medical adviser in the new administration when the president-elect takes office on January 20, 2021.
How they stack up agewise
While the Pfizer vaccine and Moderna vaccine differ in terms of minimum age that is 16 and 18 years respectively as of now, the maximum age too differs. The Pfizer vaccine at 95% efficacy rate, appeared to be more or less equally protective across all age groups and racial and ethnic groups.
But the Moderna vaccine, with 94.1% efficacy, appeared to be slightly lower in people aged above 65. No wonder, Biden, aged 72 years has been given Pfizer vaccine while Kamala Harris, 56, has been administered the Moderna vaccine.
The interval for the second dose is 28 days for Moderna, while it is 21 days for Pfizer. Hence, we may expect Biden taking his second dose before his swearing-in on or before January 10, 2021, while Harris may take it a week after the swearing-in, around January 26, 2021.
