The vaccine launch is not going as planned so far and has faced shortages of resources and staffing problems caused by the pandemic.
Why it matters: The Trump administration’s goal of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of the year has dropped dramatically, raising concerns about how long it might take until enough people are vaccinated in the U.S. to get life back to normal.
By the numbers: 1.3% of the US population has been vaccinated and 33% of vaccines distributed to states have been administered, according to a data analysis from Bloomberg’s CDC.
- Operation Warp Speed distributed 13 million doses, about 7 million doses below its target. About 4.3 million doses have been administered.
The situation: State officials have provided several reasons for vaccinations to have occurred at a slower than expected rate, according to the New York Times.
- The increase in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths has overburdened health facilities, hampering their ability to deliver vaccines.
- Many states have reserved doses of vaccine for nursing homes and long-term care facilities, delaying distribution.
- Holidays have also led to reduced hours and limited staff at clinics.
Yes but: NIAID director Anthony Fauci said on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” program that he saw “a small glimpse of hope” after 1.5 million doses were administered in the previous 72 hours, a sharp increase in the rate of vaccination .
In view of this slow launch, some experts simply want to prioritize getting more gun injections – regardless of which ones – as the pandemic worsens.
Driving the news: Operation Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui said yesterday that the government is considering halving the dose of each Modern vaccine injection to double the number of people who could get it, per NYT.
And some experts are arguing that second shots should be postponed.
- “It is time to change the plan; that is, we must give people a single vaccination now and postpone their second injection until more doses of the vaccine are available, ”wrote Robert Wachter of UCSF and Ashish Jha de Brown yesterday in a Washington Post article.
The Texas Department of Health He recently sent a letter to vaccine providers urging them to vaccinate as many people as possible, as soon as possible.
- “If, in a given situation, all 1A and 1B readily available and willing people were attended to, we encourage you to turn again and provide vaccine to any additional available and willing people, regardless of their priority designation,” wrote the commissioner.
The end result: “A vaccine that has been sitting on the shelf for weeks, waiting for its perfect container, does not help to extinguish the pandemic,” wrote former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb in an WSJ opinion piece.