A senior government official told CNN that when the government announced it would release the reserved doses on Friday, many of those reserves had already been released into the system as of last year, when production was increasing.
When Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was asked on Friday whether there is indeed a reserve for second doses to be released, he said: “No. There is no reserve stock.”
“Now we have enough confidence that our ongoing production will be quality and available to provide people with the second dose, so we are no longer sitting on a reservation,” he said in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt. “We make it available for states to request.”
The revelation appears to contradict what Azar announced on Tuesday at a briefing for Operation Warp Speed, where he said the government would be “releasing all supplies for orders by the states, rather than keeping the second dose in reserve.”
And it adds another level of confusion for state officials, who struggled to distribute vaccines after being tasked with doing so by the federal government.
However, vaccine manufacturer Pfizer said it already had the doses ready to be administered. What was not immediately clear was how long it would take to get these doses to the states.
Michael Pratt, spokesman for Operation Warp Speed, also denied the notion that the reserve was “exhausted” in a statement to CNN.
“This week, almost 13 million total doses were supplied to the states to order, millions more than in other weeks, as the second dose reserve is fully available for order,” said Pratt. “States have not yet fully ordered against their order limits. As stated this week, we are now moving to the stage where the full amount released for OWS is being made available for order, first to cover second doses, second to provide first doses additional . ”
Furious officers
The news surprised many of the officials charged with creating plans to administer vaccines at the state and local levels.
Oregon Health Director Patrick Allen in a letter to Azar in which he reported a connection to Brown and Operation Warp Speed CEO Gen. Gustave Perna on Thursday demanded that the HHS chief reconcile his statement about “release the entire supply” with this revelation.
“During this call, he informed us that there is no dose reservation and we are already receiving the full distribution of the vaccines,” wrote Allen. “If true, this is extremely disturbing and puts our plans to expand eligibility at serious risk. These plans were made based on your statement about ‘release all supplies’ that you have in reserve. If this information is accurate, don’t we will be able to start vaccinating our vulnerable elderly people on January 23, as planned. “
In an interview with CNN, Allen described the call as an “embarrassing discussion” in which Perna confirmed that there was no physical stockpile of vaccine, but gave the impression that the states simply misunderstood the government’s plans.
“I can’t believe I got it wrong,” said Allen. Allen confirmed that Oregon will have to postpone its plan to start vaccinating elderly people on January 23, as no vaccine increases are coming.
“It is so disappointing,” he added. “People are desperate for the vaccine, and we work hard to expand who is eligible, and not being able to do that is just overwhelming now.”
Colorado Democratic Governor Jared Polis accused the government of lying to state officials.
Vaccine maker Pfizer says it has second doses of coronavirus vaccines ready to be shipped as needed.
“Operation Warp Speed (OWS) asked us to start sending second doses recently. As a result, we have all second doses of previous shipments to the US on hand. We are working 24 hours a day to produce millions more each day. “, Pfizer said in a statement sent to CNN.
“We have and continue to work closely with OWS on our production, launch and shipment schedules – to ensure that Americans receive their first and second doses of the vaccine on time. We provide OWS with a specific schedule and we do not anticipate any problems meeting the commitments we made “, added the company.
CNN contacted the vaccine manufacturer Moderna, as well as Moderna’s distribution partner, McKesson, and received no response.
The revelation that the second doses were not strictly guarded was first reported by the Post, which also reported that the Trump administration changed its strategy to start using the second doses last year.
“We are hearing that there is no stock of vaccine for the second dose, but that it was more of a ‘paper exercise’,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, medical director of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers. “The stock seems to be all on paper; they were tracking the anticipated need, but they weren’t really holding on to the product.”
The end result, said Plescia, is that the vaccine will remain scarce for at least a few more weeks.
“I think the original message was lost in many exaggerated promises,” said Plescia. “Until there is a more robust supply, we need to make it clear to the public that the opportunity to obtain the vaccine is limited.”
The realization that there are not a lot of vaccines coming has surprised even those in regular contact with government health officials.
Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, said his organization was not informed of the lack of a vaccine reserve and did not read about it on the news.
“It was a complete surprise,” Freeman told CNN on Friday, adding, “Hearing that this was done for several weeks was really shocking for us.”
“I don’t know if the right hand knows what the left is doing here,” she said, adding that there is a risk that people will not be vaccinated correctly if the federal government does not provide reliable numbers for the vaccine supply.
The launch is taking place more slowly than promised
The news ends a disappointing vaccine launch under the Trump administration.
Although vaccines were developed in record time, the process of putting them in the arms of Americans was much slower than the authorities promised. In large part, this is due to the fact that the Trump administration left the herculean task of vaccinating its population to each state. But the government’s constantly fluctuating estimates of the amount of vaccine available have also made it difficult for states to develop vaccination plans, state officials said.
“Sec Azar’s announcement on Tuesday that HHS would release all supplies for order by the states, instead of keeping the 2nd doses in reserve, led us to believe that additional doses were available and would be available,” Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, told CNN, noting that allocations to states have not actually increased.
“State and local jurisdictions are looking forward to more doses to expand vaccination for older Americans, while continuing to vaccinate health and first-line professionals,” added Hannan. “It is very important that states obtain accurate estimates and allocations in advance so that they can plan the distribution and administration of the vaccine.”
This story was updated with comments from the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, and a statement from Pfizer.
Jacqueline Howard, Lauren Mascarenhas, Amanda Sealy, Nadia Kounang and John Bonifield of CNN contributed to this report.