Executive Summary

CDC officials designing distribution plans worry some eligible for vaccination may wait for a better product to emerge.

Federal officials are now confronting another challenge for the uptake of a potential coronavirus vaccine – patient warehousing – along with waning public confidence in product safety and efficacy.

Hesitancy to take the first coronavirus vaccines because of unclear safety or efficacy and political influence is already pervasive in the US. Now, another group is emerging that may be reluctant to receive the first vaccines because a better product may be on the way.

During the 22 October Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meeting on coronavirus vaccine development and approval issues, committee member Michael Kurilla, director of the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences Division of Clinical Innovation, suggested sponsors’ willingness to trumpet positive clinical data may drive people in prioritized groups to refuse the first products on the market.

Read more