A crippling winter storm on Tuesday wreaked havoc with COVID-19 vaccination efforts across the country, forcing cancellation of appointments and delaying vaccine delivery just as the federal government set up new mass vaccination sites aimed at to reach hard-hit communities.
FEMA has opened its first COVID-19 vaccination sites in Los Angeles and Oakland, part of a broader effort by the Biden government to get faster shots in the arms and reach minority communities affected by the outbreak.
The development took place as the vaccination campaign increased. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the US provides an average of approximately 1.7 million doses per day.
And the government said Tuesday it is increasing the amount of vaccine sent to states to 13.5 million doses per week, an increase of 57% when President Joe Biden took office almost a month ago, as well as the doubling the weekly doses to 2 million. to pharmacies.
At the same time, coronavirus deaths have dropped sharply over the past six weeks, and new cases have declined.
Snow, ice and bitter cold forced the authorities to stop vaccinations from Pennsylvania to Illinois and from Tennessee to Missouri. In the snowy Chicago, dr. Allison Arwady, public health commissioner, said more than a hundred urban vaccines were not sent Tuesday because of the extreme weather, which led to many cancellations.
The Biden government has said the weather is expected to disrupt the transportation of a FedEx plant in Memphis and a UPS facility in Louisville, Kentucky. Both serve as vaccination stations for a number of states.
In Texas, Harris County in Houston rushed to file more than 8,000 doses of vaccine against Moderna’s coronavirus after a public health agency lost power early Monday and its generator failed, authorities said. The shots that were in danger of being spoiled if not handed out were distributed in three hospitals, the jail in the country and Rice University.
“It feels incredible. I’m very grateful, ”said Harry Golen, a 19-year-old second-year student who waited almost four hours with his friends, much of it in the freezing cold, and was one of the last people to get the shots – otherwise students until March or April.
More than 400,000 additional doses payable in Texas will now only arrive on Wednesday, officials said.
Geisinger, one of Pennsylvania’s largest health systems, has canceled vaccination appointments scheduled for Wednesday and Friday at various locations after the CDC told health officials that shipments would be delayed due to severe weather.
Vaccine shipments were also delayed in Ohio and Missouri – where snow, ice and bitter cold had to cancel the mass vaccination events planned this week.
In California, however, two new FEMA sites have started mass vaccinations. In the early hours of the morning in Los Angeles, several dozen cars had been set up with people sitting inside, reading newspapers and spending time, half an hour before the opening of the country’s first yard at 9 a.m. with the help of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. .
Troops in camouflage measures stood around the sprawling parking lot at California State University, Los Angeles, where about 40 white tents were erected and dozens of orange cones were erected to direct traffic.
The website, set up in the strong Latino East LA, as part of an effort to reach communities that suffered excessively during the crisis, aims to vaccinate up to 6,000 people a day. Another site has opened in the Oakland Coliseum, near black and Latino neighborhoods.
The badly hit California overtook New York State for the highest death toll in the country, at more than 47,000.
The Los Angeles administration is “close to a community affected by this pandemic,” said Gavin Newsom. “The attempt here is to address the issue directly.”
The Biden administration plans to establish, in collaboration with state authorities, one hundred federally supported vaccination sites nationwide.
Elsewhere in the country, the virus has put a huge damper on Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Bourbon Street in the French Quarter, where the most fun party is usually held, was cordoned off with police barricades. The pubs were ordered to close, a year after the crowds of Mardi Gras were blamed for a serious outbreak of COVID-19 in Louisiana.
“It’s hard to turn my head about it,” New Orleans lawyer Dave Lanser, wearing a green hat and a black mask with a curved beak, said as he went up and down in an almost empty Bourbon Street look. But “I think there is no way to do it safely this year,” he said. “So, I support canceling the parades, closing the bars, all that sort of thing.”
Nearly 39.7 million Americans, or about 12% of the U.S. population, received at least one dose of the vaccine, and 15 million received both shots, the CDC said.
Deaths average about 1,700 per day, with more than 1,600 (or nearly 49%) from their peak in mid-January. And the average number of new cases per day dropped to about 85,000, the lowest in 3 1/2 months. This is below a peak of almost a quarter of a million a day in early January. The total U.S. death toll is at nearly 490,000.
Nevertheless, some public health experts warn that it is far too early to declare that the virus is on the wane. First, they are concerned about the more contagious variants taking hold.
Dr. Ronald Hershow, director of epidemiology at the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health, predicted there would pick up.
“Honestly, I would be surprised if we could point to the recent downturn as the moment in time where we turn from here and everything is downhill,” he said.
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Associated Press authors Kevin McGill in New Orleans, Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri, Michelle R. Smith in Providence, RI and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.