SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – The New Mexico Department of Health announced Monday that it will follow federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance and expand the time frame for administering the second COVID-19 vaccine dose. NMDOH says under the previous guidelines, providers aimed to administer the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine after 21 days, and the second dose of the Moderna vaccine after 28 days.
According to CDC, the second dose should be administered as close to the recommended interval as possible but if that is not possible, the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines may be scheduled for administration up to six weeks or 42 days after the first dose. There is currently limited data on the efficacy of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines administered beyond this window according to the CDC.
NMDOH also announced that it has updated its vaccine dashboard to include county-by-county vaccination numbers and new maps depicting statewide vaccination distribution.
