Leading health officials in the United States encouraged states to start vaccinating people more widely, recognizing that the implementation of immunization was slower than anticipated and opening the tap for a wider range of Americans to start taking vaccines.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, during a call with reporters on Wednesday, blamed the introduction of Covid-19 shots around the holidays and overly detailed state plans to prevent the vaccination campaign. He urged governors to vaccinate older people and other high-risk populations to prevent vaccines from remaining in the freezer.
Photographer: Micah Green / Bloomberg
If the governors “are using all the vaccine that is allocated, requested, sent, distributed, they are putting it in the hands of health professionals, that’s great,” said Azar. “But if for some reason their distribution is struggling and they are putting vaccines in freezers, then by all means you should be opening up until 70 and over, 65 and over. You must be sure that patients in the nursing home are being vaccinated. “
About 5.2 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc. have been administered in the United States since mid-December, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. This represents about 31% of the doses distributed so far, according to the Bloomberg tracker.
Acceleration Plans
Azar and other officials from Operation Warp Speed said they expected vaccinations to start accelerating, although they refused to provide the number of vaccines administered daily and how many expected to be administered by the end of the month. National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins on Wednesday in an interview with the Washington Post said he expects the United States to give about 1 million injections a day, a figure that officials at Operation Warp Speed comment declined.
HHS has announced that it will donate $ 3 billion to states, territories and some cities to support Covid-19 vaccination. The department will also provide $ 19.1 billion to jurisdictions for testing, contact tracking and other pandemic mitigation measures.
Azar said the government has been examining the factors that have slowed implementation in recent weeks. Operation Warp Speed will take advantage of its partnership with more than a dozen pharmacy chains ahead of schedule to increase vaccinations. Azar said states could start sending doses to participating locations.
(Updates with additional details in the last two paragraphs.)