A few weeks after the first coronavirus vaccine was authorized in the United States, it became clear that the vaccine’s launch in the country had a painfully slow start.
Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s coronavirus vaccine initiative, predicted that 20 million Americans would receive a coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2020. As of December 30, less than 2.8 million people had received their first injections, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz on Sunday that vaccinations could accelerate soon.
Fauci said there is no reason why the United States cannot immunize 1 million people a day now.
This pace would put the country on the right track to meet President-elect Joe Biden’s goal of vaccinating 100 million people in his first 100 days in office.
“We are not where we want to be, there is no doubt about that, but I think we can get there if we really accelerate, get some momentum and see what happens when we enter the first weeks of January,” Fauci said.
He cited the widespread smallpox vaccination efforts in New York in 1947 as an example.
“I was a six-year-old boy who was one of those who was vaccinated,” said Fauci. “So if New York City can make $ 5 million in two weeks, the United States can make $ 1 million a day.”
Retrieving vaccines
In the absence of clear federal guidance, the launch of the vaccine in the United States has turned into a patchwork response that represents a major burden for the already overburdened state health departments.
Local authorities were tasked with coordinating vaccination schedules and, at the same time, facing a tsunami of sick patients. Many health departments do not have the funding to hire enough staff to administer doses in large batches. Others have no experience transferring thousands of doses of local deposits into the arms of individuals – what experts call the “last mile” challenge.
“Vaccines on the shelves do nothing while thousands of Americans are dying,” Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University School of Public Health, told Business Insider. “This is a scam. This is the most ridiculous example of our country’s incredible ability to be innovative in the production of the vaccine, but of our government’s inability to help get it to people.”
He added that “Biden’s team will have a lot of hard work ahead of them.”
Biden’s 100-day target is likely to require more funding from Congress, in addition to the December $ 8 billion relief package that helps states with vaccine distribution issues. Many public health experts say it will also require greater partnership between the federal and state governments.
“To say that the federal government should do this alone, it will never happen,” Fauci told Raddatz. “Leaving states on their own without any help, without any instruction, without any resources, is going to be difficult. You have to have a combination of both.”
Seniors and first responders wait in line to receive a COVID-19 vaccine at the Lakes Regional Library on December 30, 2020 in Fort Myers, Florida.
Octavio Jones / Getty Images
Some progress so far offers a ‘little glimmer of hope’
The United States has already administered more than 4.2 million initial doses of coronavirus vaccines on Saturday morning, the CDC reported. Much of these doses have been distributed in recent days.
“A small glimpse of hope is that in the past 72 hours they have put 1.5 million doses in people’s arms, which is an average of around 500,000 a day,” Fauci told Raddatz.
He estimated that all priority groups in the country – including health workers, nursing home residents, essential frontline workers, elderly Americans and Americans with high-risk medical conditions – could be vaccinated in late March or early April. .
Around that time, in the spring, he added, the United States can “have what I call the vaccine hunting season – meaning anyone who wants a vaccine can get it.” This is in line with previous estimates by federal officials.
“If from April, May, June, July and August, we do the type of vaccine implementation that I’m talking about, at least a million people a day and maybe more, when we end the summer and fall, we will have achieved “herd immunity in about 75% to 80% of the population,” said Fauci.
But some experts call for vaccinations to increase further.
“To achieve 80% herd immunity through vaccination, it will take us 10 years at a rate of 1 million vaccines a week,” Dr. Leana Wen, former Baltimore health commissioner, recently told CNN. “Or, to put it another way, if we want to get there in six months, we have to make 3.5 million vaccines a day.”