The winter storm that swept through Texas and much of the United States posed new obstacles to coronavirus vaccination efforts.
Driving the news: The dangerous climate has reduced deliveries from two central distribution centers to the Southeast. The United States government is projecting “widespread delays” in vaccine shipments in the coming days, a spokesman for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told the Washington Post.
- The CDC did not specify how many doses scheduled for delivery this week will be affected.
The situation: Several regions have canceled vaccination efforts, including Alabama, Indiana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Tennessee and the Chicago area.
- The Texas State Department of Health Services tweeted that it expects this week’s shipments to arrive Wednesday at a minimum, depending on local conditions.
- In Houston, the public health agency lost strength and had to distribute thousands of vaccines before they spoiled.
- Missouri closed all large-scale vaccination sites till Friday.
- Some counties in Minnesota had to cancel vaccinations, reports an affiliate of Fox News.
- The supermarket chain Publix has stopped receiving vaccines in Florida, South Carolina and Georgia due to shipping delays.
- Weather is expected to disrupt vaccine shipments from a FedEx facility in Tennessee and a UPS facility in Kentucky, which operate as shipping hubs for several states, the Biden government said.
The big picture: The storm caused several deaths, as well as a widespread power outage across Texas.
The end result: “No one wants to put the vaccine at risk when trying to apply it under dangerous conditions,” said the Texas DSHS in its Twitter post.
The other side: The Biden government announced on Tuesday that the number of vaccines sent to states weekly will rise again, from 11 million doses to 13.5 million, by The Post.
- And FEMA launched its first mass vaccination sites COVID-19 yesterday in Los Angeles and Oakland. The sites are part of the government’s plan to distribute vaccines more quickly and to affected communities.