The Biden government is increasing the weekly supply of COVID-19 vaccines to states and territories by 16% next week and plans to give governors early warning of vaccine distribution, according to several state officials informed by the White House on Tuesday. -market.
The supply of vaccines to states, territories and Native American tribes will increase to 10 million doses next week, from 8.6 million and will continue at that rate for the next three weeks. Governors will receive a three-week forecast of their vaccine allocations, giving them more time to prepare vaccine distribution plans.
President Biden is expected to announce changes to the country’s vaccine distribution plan at an event at the White House on Tuesday.
The federal government is planning to buy 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines – 100 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine and 100 million doses of the Modern vaccine, participants said. Next week, the government will send 5.7 million doses of the Modern vaccine and 4.3 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
This purchase increases the federal government’s total vaccine order from 400 million current doses to 600 million doses, which would allow the federal government vaccinate 300 million Americans, a senior Biden government official told CBS News on Tuesday.
The newly purchased doses – which will be produced “during the summer” – do not, from now on, increase the timeline for all Americans to receive a vaccine, if they wish.
“It will take several months for us to be in a position where we can actually tell Americans that it is ‘hunting season’, as Dr. Fauci calls it, to apply for vaccines,” said the senior administration official said. “But with today’s announcement, we now buy enough vaccine to vaccinate 300 million Americans, that is good news.”
Governors on both sides were being informed Tuesday afternoon by Jeff Zients, coordinator of the COVID response from the Biden government, Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Rochelle Walensky and Army General Gustave F. Perna, who is overseeing Operation Warp Speed, the national vaccine distribution program launched by the Trump administration.
Representatives of several governors on both sides shared information from the conference call with CBS News.
Several state officials working for Democratic and Republican governors have expressed relief over the increased supply of vaccine and the decision to give state leaders a three-week schedule.
“A three-week forecast is a lifetime” when it comes to planning for the future, said a participant in the call who works for a Republican governor.
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont found the increase in supply and the new schedule “very useful.”
“The supply has been a kind of black box for about a month,” said Lamont, according to the call’s audio obtained by CBS News. “We couldn’t plan more than a week in advance.”
But some governors in the call complained that the CDC’s current system for tracking vaccine distribution is making unfair comparisons between states and territories.
Among others, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told Wallensky that the CDC’s tracking system is “misleading” because some states are keeping a second dose of the vaccine in reserve for people who received their first injection, while other states are choosing to distribute the doses as they receive them.
“Counting the second dosage in the equation, I think, is misleading,” said Cuomo in the call.
“Certainty is very valuable to us,” said Cuomo, according to the audio of the conference call. “We never got everything we needed in all of this situation at Covid – not through the federal government or the private sector. But just having facts and certainties is a big advantage.”
Other governors asked whether the CDC could better explain to the public the division of a state’s vaccine distribution – how much is considered a “first dose” and how much is considered a second dose. Doing so, these governors emphasized, would help to moderate and inform the public’s understanding of how quickly the shots are being distributed.
Biden government officials also told governors that the federal government plans to continue with the per capita distribution of the vaccine instead of accelerating distribution to states with faster and more efficient plans – an idea that had emerged in the last weeks of the Trump administration. The decision to maintain per capita distribution is considered a blow to smaller states concerned with vaccinating their populations.
State officials also said they were impressed by the seriousness of the Biden government’s first contact with governors, even during the transition of power.
“These calls were very cordial during both governments,” said one participant, “but my boss is grateful for the seriousness with which the Biden government has endeavored to reach out.”
Michael Kaplan contributed to this report.