A paralyzing winter storm wreaked havoc on COVID-19 vaccination efforts across the country on Tuesday, forcing cancellation of appointments and delaying vaccine deliveries as soon as the federal government implemented new mass vaccination sites with the goal of reach affected communities.
FEMA opened its first COVID-19 inoculation sites in Los Angeles and Oakland, part of a broader effort by the Biden government to launch gun shots more quickly and reach minority communities hard hit by the outbreak.
Developments emerged as vaccination skyrocketed. The United States is administering an average of nearly 1.7 million doses per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And the government said on Tuesday it is increasing the amount of vaccine sent to states to 13.5 million doses a week, an increase of 57% since President Joe Biden took office almost a month ago, in addition to doubling for 2 million weekly doses sent to pharmacies.
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At the same time, coronavirus deaths have dropped dramatically in the past six weeks, and new cases have plummeted.
Snow, ice and intense cold forced authorities to suspend vaccination from Pennsylvania to Illinois and from Tennessee to Missouri. In snowy Chicago, Commissioner of Public Health, Dr. Allison Arwady, said that more than a hundred vaccine sites in the city did not receive remittances on Tuesday because of the extreme weather, leading to many cancellations.
The Biden government said the weather should stop shipments from a FedEx facility in Memphis and a UPS facility in Louisville, Kentucky. Both serve as centers for sending vaccines to various states.
In Texas, Harris County, Houston, rushed to deliver more than 8,000 doses of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine after a public health facility lost power on Monday and its backup generator also failed, said authorities. The shots at risk of damage if not fired were distributed to three hospitals, County Prison and Rice University.
“It’s an incredible feeling. I’m so grateful,” said Harry Golen, a 19-year-old sophomore who waited for almost four hours with his friends, many of them in the icy cold, and was one of the last people to get shot – that otherwise would not reach students until March or April.
More than 400,000 additional doses due in Texas will not arrive until at least Wednesday, officials said.
Geisinger, one of Pennsylvania’s largest health systems, canceled vaccination appointments scheduled for Wednesday and Friday at several locations after the CDC told state health officials that shipments would be delayed due to bad weather.
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Vaccine shipments were also delayed in Ohio and Missouri – where snow, ice and intense cold forced the cancellation of mass inoculation events scheduled for this week.
In California, however, two new FEMA sites have started mass vaccinations. Early in the morning in Los Angeles, several dozen cars were already lined up with people sitting inside, reading newspapers and hanging out, half an hour before the 9 am opening of the country’s first website operated with the help of the Federal Emergency Management Agency .
Troops in camouflage uniforms stood around the large parking lot at California State University in Los Angeles, where about 40 white tents were erected and dozens of orange cones were placed to guide traffic.
The site, installed in eastern LA as part of an effort to reach communities that suffered disproportionately during the crisis, aims to vaccinate up to 6,000 people a day. Another location opened at the Oakland Coliseum, close to the working class black and Latin neighborhoods.
The hard-hit California surpassed New York State with the highest death toll in the country, with more than 47,000.
The Los Angeles website is “close to a community that has been disproportionately impacted by this pandemic,” said Governor Gavin Newsom. “The effort here is to solve this problem directly.”
The Biden government plans to establish 100 vaccination sites assisted by the federal government across the country, in cooperation with state officials.
In other parts of the country, the virus has put a big damper on Mardi Gras in New Orleans. French Quarter Bourbon Street, where the most turbulent party usually takes place, has been blocked by police barricades. Bars were closed, a year after Mardi Gras crowds were blamed for a serious COVID-19 outbreak in Louisiana.
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“It’s hard to understand,” said New Orleans lawyer Dave Lanser, wearing a luminescent green cloak and a black mask with a curved beak, as he looked up and down an almost empty Bourbon Street. But “I don’t think there is a way to do this safely this year,” he said. “So, I support canceling the parades, closing the bars, all that kind of thing.”
Nearly 39.7 million Americans, or about 12% of the United States’ population, received at least one dose of the vaccine, and 15 million received both vaccines, the CDC said.
Deaths are about 1,700 a day on average, down by more than 1,600 (or nearly 49%) since the peak in mid-January. And the average number of new cases per day has dropped to about 85,000, the lowest in three and a half months. That’s a drop from a peak of almost 250,000 a day in early January. The total death toll in the USA is almost 490,000.
Still, some public health experts warn that it is too early to declare that the virus is decreasing. On the one hand, they are concerned with the most contagious variants that are occurring.
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Dr. Ronald Hershow, director of epidemiology at the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois-Chicago, predicted that there will be increases.
“Honestly, I would be surprised if we could point to this recent recession as the moment when we turn the corner and everything is getting worse from here,” he said.