Operation Warp Speed leaders waited more than two months to approve a plan to distribute and administer the Covid-19 vaccines proposed by US health officials, government officials said, leaving states with little time to implement a health campaign. mass vaccination amid an outbreak of coronavirus.
State and local officials had been clamoring for months for help in preparing for the largest vaccination program in the history of the United States when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a manual in September to guide them.
The CDC wanted to start helping states plan in June how to vaccinate people. But Operation Warp Speed officials rejected the vaccine distribution agency’s plan. They adopted a similar plan in August only after exploring other options – and then suspended the release of the CDC manual for states for two weeks for further release and to put it together with another document, officials said.
Operation Warp Speed was supposed to be a high point in the response to the Trump administration’s coronavirus, but it stumbled over the finish line due to problems with federal planning and forecasting. Now, the public-private partnership is struggling to accelerate vaccinations, adjusting eligibility guidelines as states rush to increase their capacity to administer doses on a large scale.
“They didn’t plan for the last inch of the last mile, the part that matters most – how you really are going to vaccinate so many people quickly,” said Dr. Bruce Gellin, a former employee of the Health and Human Services vaccine team and president of global immunization of the Sabin Vaccine Institute.