A group of eight governors is calling on the Trump administration to release the doses of the coronavirus vaccine that are currently being held in reserve for states that request them immediately.
The current strategy of the Trump administration is to retain half of the available doses of vaccine to ensure that there is enough supply for everyone who receives the first dose to receive the second.
But governors, all Democrats, say it doesn’t make sense to have the vaccine in freezers, and the reserved doses should be distributed, with the confidence that enough doses will be made to deliver the second doses in the future.
“While some of these life-saving vaccines are in Pfizer’s freezers, our country is losing 2,661 Americans every day, according to the last seven-day average,” wrote the governors in a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar and Gen. Gustave Leg of Operation Warp Speed. “Failure to distribute these doses to the states that request them is unfair and unacceptable. We demand that the federal government begin to distribute these doses reserved to the states immediately. “
The governors who sign the letter are from Michigan Gretchen Whitmer
Gretchen Whitmer At least 6 Republican lawmakers participated in Trump-inspired protests. State capitals are under siege by pro-Trump mobs. The Memorandum: The toxic division deepened in 2020 MORE, California Gavin Newsom
Gavin NewsomNewsom proposes 0 state stimulus checks for low-income Californians. California’s COVID-19 cases surpass the previous record for a day in Massachusetts to require 100 percent of car sales to be electric by 2035 MORE, Laura Kelly from Kansas, JB Pritzker from Illinois, Minnesota’s Tim Walz
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Andrew Cuomo Governors respond to violence in the Capitol Trump administration by accelerating the launch of the COVID-19 vaccination in pharmacies Cuomo’s dangerous law is based on fiction MORE, Washington’s Jay Inslee
Jay Robert Inslee At least 6 Republican lawmakers participated in Trump-inspired protests. State capitals are under siege by pro-Trump mobs Washington state extends ban on indoor dining MOREand Wisconsin Tony Evers
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The Trump administration, however, has indicated that it will not change its strategy of keeping second doses in reserve, and responded that states have not administered all the doses they have already received.
“Operation Warp Speed continues to ensure that second doses are available to locations of vaccine administration at appropriate intervals, as directed by the leaders of the jurisdiction,” said a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. “We would be delighted to hear that jurisdictions have actually administered far more doses than they are currently reporting.”
The Trump administration is encouraging states to expand the categories of people eligible for vaccine doses as a way to speed up the process and ensure that strict criteria do not slow it down.
The shuttle between the states and the federal government occurs because the initial distribution of the vaccine was slower than expected. So far, about 6 million of about 21 million distributed doses have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.