WATERTOWN, Mass.– As US healthcare experts debate the merits of administering two COVID-19 vaccine doses first to fewer recipients, or one dose first to many, new data show that 70% of US infectious disease (ID) physicians agree with the vaccine dosing guidelines that states should vaccinate fewer people with both doses of the approved, two-dose vaccines. The remaining 30% of doctors would prefer vaccinating as many people as possible with one dose as a priority.
In a marked change, 78% percent of ID doctors now say they now trust the prescribing of COVID-19 vaccines, a significant uptick from 47% in October 2020 – while roughly double the percent of respondents now say they trust federal vaccine safety policy (50% up from 26% in October).
Data are in the Wave 3: Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccine Development report from InCrowd, the pioneer for real-time, high-quality primary market intelligence for the life science industry. The report is the latest in a multi-part COVID-19 tracking series.
Along with increasing trust in Federal vaccine safety policy, 44% of ID doctors report confidence in state and local vaccine safety policy, up from 36% in October. However, overall confidence in local and state policies about the vaccine roll-out and distribution has declined by 34% and 54% respectively, from October 2020.
“It is encouraging to see the data presenting evidence that infectious disease physicians are beginning to see light at the end the tunnel for the pandemic,” said Daniel S. Fitzgerald, CEO of Apollo Intelligence, parent firm to InCrowd. “However, physicians in our third COVID-19 vaccine development report tempered their improved outlook with the realism that present state and local government vaccine logistics are flawed. We’ll continue to track the sentiments of key opinion leaders on the vaccine rollout and will share our next wave of this research at the 2021 Intellus Worldwide Summit on April 8th.”
ID physicians also delayed their estimates of a return to normal for pre-pandemic healthcare practices until March 2022—five months later than their estimate in October 2020. Additionally, they raised the threshold for herd immunity to 75%, up from 71% in October, while acknowledging that many of today’s pandemic-driven healthcare process changes are here to stay.
Over two thirds of the physicians in the report already had received the full vaccination course, and another quarter had received their first dose, at the time of response on January 21-22, 2021. Yet only 7% of respondents said their facilities’ COVID-19 mitigation procedures had changed since staff vaccinations were underway—and those cited changes were small, such as making routine COVID-19 testing a requirement only for non-vaccinated staff.
