The letter was the most explicit appeal that governors made to the Biden government to publicly clarify how it is conducting its distribution process.
However, the letter illustrates the continuing confusion over the deployment effort, which began with Biden’s predecessor, but which, according to governors, remains under his supervision.
A person familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified to speak frankly, said that governors want the government to be clearer to the American public that the restrictions on receiving the vaccine are due to the national shortage of doses and not to due to the failures of state and local officials, who are being held largely accountable.
Governors also want more precise communication from the Biden administration about where vaccine doses are going, the person said, after encountering situations where there are vaccination sites without vaccine doses. The states also do not always know all the pharmacies or health care facilities that receive direct shipments of vaccines from the federal government, which further complicates distribution plans, the person familiar with the situation said.
Some elements of the letter emerged in calls between the governors and the White House, but not to the extent that the letter was presented. In that case, the governors wanted to make sure that the extent of their concerns reached the president.
Cuomo, who is president of the National Association of Governors and met with Biden at the White House on Friday to discuss vaccination and stimulus efforts, said it is difficult to know exactly where the federal government is sending the doses of vaccines it distributes directly.
“Some pharmacies are already receiving a distribution,” he said. “If the federal government is sending it to CVS, I will not send it to CVS”.
A White House spokesman said they are discussing data and reporting problems with the country’s governors.
“Our strong partnership with the states in recent weeks is helping us to vaccinate more people and we hope to continue to be a strong and responsive federal partner while working with relevant stakeholders to improve our data and reports,” said the spokesman. “Our goal is to get more shots into the arms of Americans in the most equitable and efficient way possible, and dealing with these issues is critical to doing just that.”
A government official added that federal agencies, including the CDC, are working to improve the Tiberius system so that states have more visibility into what is happening in their states through the various distribution channels. The official said that new updates will allow states to view vaccine inventory for retail pharmacies, identify where “missed doses” exist and provide an overview of orders and shipments to all pharmacies and federal entities, along with other improvements.
The letter was also signed by the leaders of Arkansas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Alabama, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Michigan.
In it, governors said discrepancies with CDC’s public vaccine statistics reports were causing “unnecessary confusion” for their citizens. State officials complained that the publicly released number of vaccines allocated by the federal government differed from what actually existed in their states. Both figures differ from the actual vaccines that healthcare professionals have administered in their arms.
The group of governors said the problems with public disclosure of vaccine distribution were ongoing “since last year”, when the Trump administration was still in place.
“Due to the anxiety generated by the demand and supply of the vaccine, it is imperative that the American people fully understand the process,” wrote the governors.
They also expressed concern that the various federal vaccination programs – including pharmacies – are “beyond our control” and confusing to the public.
“If the federal government distributes independently of the states to these same entities, without state coordination and consultation, redundancy and inefficiency may well happen,” wrote the governors.
They highlighted federal vaccine shipments to nursing homes and long-term care facilities, pharmacies and Federally Qualified Health Centers as examples of areas where the effort was causing duplicate efforts, writing that they were best positioned to know which facilities were equipped to distribute injections.
The Biden administration announced earlier this month that it was starting direct shipments of 1 million doses of vaccines a week to retail pharmacies, which it said were selected “based on its ability to reach some of the populations most at risk for serious illness. Covid-19, including socially vulnerable communities. “
Part of the confusion over the distribution of the vaccine stems from the decision by the Trump administration to send the vaccine to the states and allow them to decide how to distribute the doses. Instead of reinventing what the previous government instituted, Biden’s team created additional distribution channels on top of state vaccine allocations, which, in a way, made the process more complicated.
Governors are also facing a problem that is partially caused by themselves. Many governors chose to make vaccine doses available to the elderly, even when it was clear that supplies would be extremely limited.
The Trump administration has also encouraged states to open up vaccine eligibility to get vaccines more quickly. Now, these broad categories of eligibility are generating frustration, as elderly Americans or those with pre-existing illnesses discover that they are eligible for a vaccine, but none are available.
CNN’s Gregory Wallace contributed to this report.