People wait in line on New Year’s Eve to receive the vaccination for COVID-19 at a seniors’ station in an unoccupied Oviedo Mall store. Governor Ron DeSantis ordered Florida residents 65 and older to be included in the first group to receive coronavirus vaccination, against federal CDC recommendations.
Paul Hennessy | LightRocket | Getty Images
The head of the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday that he is asking states to start vaccinating low-priority groups against Covid-19, while US officials are trying to accelerate the pace after a slower-than-expected initial implementation.
FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn did not advise opening vaccines to all Americans, telling reporters that states should apply vaccines to groups that “make sense”, such as the elderly, people with pre-existing illnesses, police, firefighters and other essential workers.
“We heard in the press that some people said, ‘OK, I am waiting to vaccinate all of my healthcare professionals. We have about 35% acceptance of the vaccine. ‘ I think it’s reasonable to expand this “to other groups, Hahn said on Friday morning at an event organized by the Alliance for Health Policy.” I would strongly encourage us to move forward by giving states the opportunity to be more expansive in who they can give the vaccine to. “
Hahn emphasized that vaccine distribution still needs to be driven by “data and science”, adding that states know what is best for their communities.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has provided states with an outline that recommends giving priority to healthcare professionals and nursing homes, but states can distribute the vaccine as they see fit. But in recent days, US health officials have expressed concerns that national guidance may be slowing vaccinations, as states limit access to vaccines to certain people.
More than 21.4 million doses of the vaccine have been distributed in the United States by Thursday, but just over 5.9 million doses have been administered, according to data compiled by the CDC. The number is a far cry from the federal government’s goal of inoculating 20 million Americans by the end of 2020 and 50 million Americans by the end of this month.
Earlier this week, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, advised states not to “micromanage” their designated vaccine doses, saying it is best to deliver the vaccines as soon as possible.
“There is no reason why states need to complete, say, vaccinate all health care providers, before opening vaccination to older Americans or other especially vulnerable populations,” Azar told reporters during a news conference on Wednesday market.
“If they are using all the vaccine that is allocated, requested, distributed, sent and they are placing it in the arms of health professionals, every bit of it is great,” he added. “But if for some reason their distribution is struggling and they are putting the vaccine in freezers, then you should certainly be opening it up to people aged 70 and over.”
Global health experts said that distributing vaccines to about 331 million Americans in a matter of months could be much more complicated and chaotic than initially thought. The logistics for obtaining and applying the vaccine are complex, requiring special training. The Pfizer vaccine, for example, requires a storage temperature of minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a press conference on Thursday, state health officials said they were working to administer the vaccine as quickly as possible, but blamed the federal government’s insufficient funding and lack of communication for the slowdown.
They said they expected the vaccination rate to increase as soon as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was authorized. The J&J vaccine requires only one injection, while the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses every three to four weeks.
American officials have recognized that the vaccine has been slower to distribute than expected. Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told STAT News on Tuesday that she expects the vaccine’s launch to accelerate “very massively” in the coming weeks.
“These are the initial stages of a really complicated task, but one that we are ready for,” she told STAT.