Also on Wednesday, the head of government for Operation Warp Speed vaccine accelerator, Moncef Slaoui, admitted that it will not be possible to vaccinate 20 million people by the end of the year – a benchmark he and other Trump administration officials have set for the effort.
Federal officials said that 20 million shots will be allocated to the states by the end of the year – the last 5 million of which will not actually be delivered until the first week of January.
“The commitment we can make is to make vaccine doses available … and I think that commitment has been fulfilled,” said Slaoui, adding that vaccinations were taking place “more slowly than we thought”.
“We are here to help states accelerate this appropriately,” he said.
The states last week were surprised by sub-expected allocations of a Covid vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech. Governors were forced to redo their plans to split the shots in their state, which led to a mea culpa from General Gustave Perna, chief of operations for Operation Warp Speed.
For months, states have pleaded with Congress and the government for millions of dollars more to rapidly increase their vaccination efforts, especially when the vaccine becomes more widely available. The year-end stimulus package included nearly $ 9 billion to help distribute and administer vaccines, but local health departments fear that funds are arriving too late. Timelines may slip even further due to President Donald Trump’s demands that the bill be changed.
Next week, the federal government plans to send 2.67 million of the Pfizer vaccine and 2 million doses of Moderna, Perna said. Vaccination in nursing homes started on Monday in 12 states and is expected to increase to about 13 states next week. But the photos are not expected to be widely available to the general public by the end of 2021.