(Reuters) – Nearly 9 million Americans received their first vaccination dose for COVID-19 on Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, as states scrambled to intensify the vaccinations that are yet to delay the roaring pandemic.
According to the CDC, the 8,987,322 people hacked with the first of two shots represent less than one-third of the 25 million total doses distributed to states by the U.S. government.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Monday requested permission from the Trump administration to directly purchase 100,000 doses of the vaccine manufactured by Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech SE, which are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). has been cleaned for emergency use.
The FDA has also approved a vaccine approved by Moderna Inc.
“We remain ready to accelerate the spread to get doses in the gun,” Whitmer, a first-term Democrat, said in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters that the vaccine could run out of doses if the federal government stopped sending. He promised to vaccinate 1 million New Yorkers by the end of January.
US President Joe Biden is considering releasing more vaccine doses to the states that the federal government has built up in an effort to secure enough supplies for a required second dose. Biden takes office on January 20th.
The second shots of both authorized vaccines are prescribed three or four weeks after the first prescription.
Public health experts say no U.S. state, including New York, has so far come close to using its federal vaccine allocations, a much slower-than-expected implementation that is partly to blame for rigid rules restricting those who can vaccinate .
The vaccinations should make another dive into the health crisis, as the pandemic claimed an average of around 3,200 lives nationwide over the past week. COVID-19 has killed more than 374,000 people in the United States since March.
States have in recent days added the vaccination capability through the ad hoc conversion of sports halls, meeting rooms and empty schools into vaccination centers.
DODGER STAGE BECOMES MASS VACCINATION PREMISES
Monday was the last day of testing for the virus at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, which according to local leaders will be converted into a mass vaccination site by the end of the week.
Los Angeles County, with a population of about 10 million people, was at the center of the latest outbreak of the pandemic in the United States, with cases and deaths rising since early November and many hospitals being overwhelmed.
Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told a news conference on Monday that hospitalizations stood at more than 8,000 on January 8, an increase of 884% from early November.
“This deadly virus is still spreading at an alarming rate … We fully expect to see another increase now that we are almost two weeks away from the New Year holidays,” Ferrer said.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo last week conceded to his demand that all health workers get a vaccine before other groups are eligible, which has resulted in hundreds of doses being wasted as half-finished scales are discarded at the end of each day. word.
He has since said that certain groups of other essential workers and people over the age of 75 can make appointments on Monday to get a chance.
There are now more than 4 million people in New York State capable of receiving the vaccine from a population of about 19 million, Cuomo said Monday during his annual state of the nation address, but only about 1 million doses are available.
“We only receive 300,000 doses a week from the federal government,” he said. “At this rate, it will take us 14 weeks to receive just enough doses for those who are currently eligible.”
New York has so far recorded nearly 40,000 COVID-19 deaths, by far the most of any U.S. state. Nearly 30,000 people have died in California, the nation’s most populous country.
Since the end of December, Texas and Florida have vaccinated people over the age of 65, although reports from the states have indicated that demand has far exceeded appointments.
Reporting by Maria Caspani and Jonathan Allen in New York, Anurag Moon in Bangalore, Daniel Trotta in San Diego and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Edited by Bill Berkrot, Aurora Ellis and Christopher Cushing