A senior administration official told CNN that when the government announced it would release a reserved dose on Friday, many of the reserves were already released into the system last year as production was increasing.
When Alex Azar, secretary of health and human services, was asked on Friday if there was in fact a reserve of second doses left to release, he said: “No. There is not a reserve stock.”
“We now have enough confidence that our continued production will be of quality and available to offer the second dose to people, so we are no longer sitting in a reserve,” he said in an interview with Lester Holt of NBC . “We made it available to the states to order.”
The revelation appears to be at odds with what Azar announced Tuesday during an Operation Warp Speed briefing, where he said the government would ‘release all supplies to states through the state, rather than the second doses in reserve. to keep ‘.
And that adds up to some confusion for government officials, who have been scrambling to disperse the vaccines after being commissioned by the federal government to do so.
However, vaccine manufacturer Pfizer said the doses were ready to be delivered. What was not immediately clear was how long it would take to get those doses in states.
Michael Pratt, a spokesman for Operation Warp Speed, also denied the idea that the reservation was “exhausted” in a statement to CNN.
“This week, nearly 13 million total doses have been delivered to countries on order, millions more than other weeks, as the reserve of second doses is made fully available to order against,” Pratt said. “States have not yet fully settled on their order costs. As said this week, we have now moved on to the phase where the full amount released to OWS is made available on order, first to cover second doses, second to offer extra first doses. ”
Officials furious
The news blinded many of the officials tasked with drawing up plans to administer vaccines at the state and local levels.
Oregon Health Director Patrick Allen said in a letter to Azar on Thursday that he had a call with Brown and General Gustave Perna, CEO of Operation Warp Speed, demanding that the head of the HHS state his statement on the release of the total offer must be reconciled with this revelation.
“During the call, he informed us that there are no reserve doses, and we are already receiving the full allocation of vaccines,” Allen wrote. “If this is true, it’s extremely disturbing, and it puts our plans to extend the qualification under serious risks. These plans were made on the basis of your statement on ‘exemption from the total offer’ you have in reserve. If If this information is accurate, we will not be able to vaccinate our vulnerable elderly people on January 23, as planned. ‘
In an interview with CNN, Allen described the call as an ‘awkward discussion’ in which Perna confirmed that there is no physical supply of vaccine, but it appears that states simply misunderstood the government’s plans.
“I do not believe I misunderstood,” Allen said. Allen confirmed that Oregon will have to delay its plan to have seniors vaccinated on Jan. 23, as there is no increase in vaccines.
“It’s just as disappointing,” he added. “People are desperate for the vaccine, and we’ve worked so hard to expand who’s eligible, and not being able to do that is just crushing right now.”
Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis has accused the government of lying to government officials.
Vaccine manufacturer Pfizer says it has second-dose coronavirus vaccines needed.
“Operation Warp Speed (OWS) has asked us to start sending the second doses first. As a result, we have all the second doses of previous shipments available to the US. We work 24 hours a day to make millions more a day. to produce., ‘Pfizer said in a statement sent to CNN.
“We need to work closely with OWS on our production, release and shipping schedules – to ensure that Americans receive their first and second doses of the vaccine on time. We have provided a specific schedule to OWS and we do not foresee any problems in the commitments we have entered into, ”the company added.
CNN contacted the vaccine manufacturer Moderna, as well as Moderna’s distribution partner McKesson, and received no response.
The revelation that the second doses were not strictly kept in reserve was first reported by the Post, which also reported that the Trump administration changed its strategy to start in second doses late last year.
“We hear that there is not a stockpile of vaccine for the second dose, but that it was rather a ‘paper exercise’,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, medical chief of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said. “It looks like the stock is on paper; they checked the expected need, but did not hold back the product.”
The bottom line, according to Plescia, is that the vaccine will remain scarce for at least a few more weeks.
“I think the original message got lost in a lot of excessive obstruction,” Plescia said. “Until there is a more robust supply, we need to be clear with the public that the opportunity to get the vaccine is limited.”
The realization that there was no large amount of vaccines stunned even those who came into regular contact with the administration’s health officials.
Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, said her organization was not informed about the lack of a vaccine reserve and read in the news about it.
“It was a complete surprise,” Freeman told CNN on Friday, adding, “Hearing that this has been done for several weeks was actually shocking to us.”
“I do not know if the right hand knows what the left hand is doing here,” she said, adding that there was a risk that people would not be vaccinated correctly if the federal government did not provide reliable numbers for its vaccine supply.
Roll-out goes slower than promised
The news covers a disappointing explosion under the Trump administration.
While vaccines were being developed in record time, the process of getting them into Americans’ arms was moving slower than officials had promised. This is largely because the Trump administration has left it to each state to figure out what the big task is of vaccinating its people. The government’s ever-changing estimates of how much vaccine is available have also made it difficult for states to draw up vaccination plans, state officials said.
“The announcement on Tuesday from Sec Azar that HHS would release the entire stock for order by state, rather than keep 2nd doses in reserve, led us to believe that additional doses would be available,” said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, told CNN and noted that the allocation to states has not actually increased.
“State and local jurisdictions are eager for more doses to extend the vaccination to older Americans as they continue to vaccinate health care and essential frontline workers,” Hannan added. “It is so critical that states receive accurate estimates and allocations in advance so that they can plan for the distribution and administration of vaccines.”
This story was updated with comments from Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and a statement from Pfizer.
CNN’s Jacqueline Howard, Lauren Mascarenhas, Amanda Sealy, Nadia Kounang and John Bonifield contributed to this report.