As California launches huge COVID-19 vaccination sites to accelerate inoculations, concern among public health officials is growing that the supply of doses may end soon.
State and local officials complained on Friday that the confusion triggered by the federal government’s recommendation to add people aged 65 and over to vaccine eligibility lists was not accompanied by an increase in remittances.
This can contribute to the already confused and chaotic vaccine launch and limit the number of people who can be vaccinated in California, just when the state appears to be gaining ground.
California administered nearly 1.2 million vaccines, or about 40% of the 3 million doses received, Governor Gavin Newsom said on Friday. It has been a significant increase since Monday, when the state administered about 783,000 doses, less than a third of the 2.5 million doses available.
But Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said on Friday that some pharmacies that would have received more vaccine shipments this week will have to wait a week, “because national supplies are just not coming.” Jeff Gorell, a deputy mayor, said on Thursday that the city will receive 46,000 doses for its vaccination sites in the coming days, but that city officials “do not know what the world will be like after Wednesday”.
“It is not a problem of the state, it is not a problem locally,” said Garcetti. “We just don’t have the supply coming in.”
U.S. governors said they expected a sharp increase in vaccine shipments, based on assurances by Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s initiative to organize mass vaccines. Instead, Newsom said on Friday, officials “” have denied this or, for whatever reason, cannot comply “
Trump administration officials assured U.S. governors that they would soon release doses of a vaccine stock as a way to help states increase their vaccination efforts. The Washington Post reported on Friday that the stock is already depleted and that states will not receive additional remittances, slowing vaccination programs across the country.
An HHS spokesman did not return a request for comment.
President-elect Joe Biden echoed these concerns, criticizing the vaccine’s launch in the U.S. on Friday as “a terrible failure so far”.
The White House’s lack of clear information means that state and local officials have not been able to make adequate plans because they do not know how many doses to expect or when to expect, said Biden. He said there were “tens of millions of doses” unused in the freezers.
Biden said his goal is for the United States to administer 100 million vaccines during his first 100 days in office, including at federally supported community vaccination centers and mobile clinics.
This type of effort will require a massive and reliable flow of doses and clear communication with local authorities who are trying to determine how many appointments to make.
Los Angeles County officials estimate that next week they will be able to manage more than 40,000 daily doses at vaccination sites that include Dodger Stadium, five county-run mega-sites – including Six Flags Magic Mountain and the Pomona Fairplex – and a handful of smaller clinics in the city.
Newsom’s handling of the launch also drew criticism, including its announcement that people 65 and older would be prioritized for vaccination – creating mass confusion in counties where officials were not ready to administer the vaccines.
Authorities were inundated with calls from residents 65 and older who want the vaccine, said Los Angeles County supervisor Kathryn Barger. But the county will not begin the next round of injections until health workers are vaccinated.
The county is not piling up doses, Barger said, but it needs a promise from state and federal governments that enough doses will arrive to keep vaccination sites running smoothly.
“People are scared,” said Barger. “This is really the lesson I’m getting from the people who are calling. People are scared. “
Last week, Newsom sent a letter with governors from seven other states – including New York, Illinois and Michigan – to Azar and the head of Operation Warp Speed demanding that the federal government release doses of a federal stock so that states can speed up their vaccinations.
This week, during a phone call with Azar and Vice President Mike Pence, governors were told that those doses would arrive soon, Newsom said. Health officials have begun to plan for an increase in supply – which now does not appear to be coming, he said.
The Biden government has promised to provide more transparency about when the doses will arrive, Newsom said, which “helps us with our planning purpose. It allows a faster and more efficient performance, more capacity. ”
Public officials in the United States are increasingly vocal in their criticisms of the Trump administration, saying that the recommendation to vaccinate the elderly would lead to shortages unless more doses were released.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on a Friday radio interview that the city vaccinated 125,000 people in four days, but has received a “very poor” consignment of 100,000 doses a week from the federal government. The city will run out of vaccine next week unless shipments increase, he said.
One of the largest hospitals in New York, Mt. The Sinai Health System canceled vaccination appointments this week because there were not enough doses.
“There is not enough vaccine available to accompany the first consultations, much less the second,” said de Blasio.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown said on Twitter that states will no longer receive shipments from the national stock next week, as promised earlier, “because there is no federal dose reserve”.
Vaccine manufacturers, meanwhile, say production is continuing. Pfizer said on Friday that it is prepared to release millions of doses a day.
“Pfizer is confident in our ability to deliver 200 million doses of our vaccine to the U.S. government by July 31,” Pfizer spokeswoman Jerica Pitts said in an email.
In Santa Clara County, officials have struggled to determine what vaccine providers in their own county are doing, or how much they have on hand, said county attorney James Williams.
Some vaccine suppliers, such as CVS, are receiving their vaccine shipments directly from the federal government, Williams said. The state distributes some doses to entities operating in several counties, including Kaiser hospitals and the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, a leading medical group in the bay area.
These entities are responsible for vaccinating most of Santa Clara County, but the county does not know exactly what they are doing, Williams said.
“We have less information than you,” said Dr. Howard Mandel, chairman of the City Health Commission of Los Angeles, who serves as an advisory board to the City Council and the mayor. The lack of communication from the county is hampering the commission’s work, and repeated requests for updates and information often go unanswered, he said.
The vaccination pipeline begins at the national level, where federal authorities distribute doses to each state, said Dr. Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services. Then, states allocate doses to counties, local health officials and other entities such as hospitals and prison systems – and then doses are allocated to providers like pharmacies and clinics.
Garcetti and three dozen mayors in big cities are pushing for less bureaucracy and more local control. In a letter this week, mayors asked Biden to release the doses directly in the cities, saying: “You need to be agile and fill in the gaps that are unique to each local area”.
Vaccine distributors said they are ready to deliver more doses, but that they are subject to government rules for distribution.
Kaiser Permanente, of Southern California, is “preparing for the expansion of eligibility” to include people aged 65 and over, but making it happen “depends on getting access to adequate vaccine supplies, which we understand is coming,” said Dr. Nancy Gin, regional director for quality and clinical analysis.
The Albertsons supermarket chain, which will administer vaccines at its retail pharmacies, said it is training more than 500 pharmacy technicians to help with inoculations and that vaccines are “coming out the door” as soon as they arrive.
“The regulatory factor really is the number of vaccines being distributed to us,” said Albertsons pharmacy manager Willem Henning. “If we got more vaccines, we could probably make several hundred more a week.”
Times staff writers Jaclyn Cosgrove and Colleen Shalby contributed to this report.