Michael Maron, chief executive of the Holy Name Medical Center, told CNBC on Tuesday that the Covid vaccination efforts at New Jersey Hospital were hampered by a constant problem: inconsistent availability.
“The biggest challenge we are currently facing is the provision of the vaccine. We simply cannot get it, and we cannot get it in any reliable way. It is very difficult,” Maron said about “Power Lunch.”
“One week we will have Pfizer, the next week we will have Moderna,” he added, referring to the manufacturers of the two vaccines who had been granted permission for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “We never really know how much of it comes, whether it’s a thousand doses … or two thousand or more.”
So far, Maron has said Holy Name Medical Center – located in Teaneck, near New York City – has administered about 5,000 vaccine doses. Maron said the hospital, however, has the ability to administer 3,000 doses a day, in part because of a partnership he entered into with Teaneck to create a vaccination site at a community center.
According to a report on Teaneck’s official website, 570 residents were given the vaccine at the site on Monday. But due to the ‘lack of available vaccine’, town manager Dean Kazinci wrote, the website was closed on Tuesday, illustrating the supply challenges Maron spoke to.
“The Holy Name Medical Center is awaiting delivery of additional vials of the vaccine that should arrive mid-week. We will release additional information when it becomes available,” Kazinci wrote.
As of Tuesday afternoon, visitors to Holy Holy’s website are also being told that the hospital is not currently planning an appointment for the vaccination of Covid.
The rollout of Covid vaccines in the US has been slower than officials had hoped. About 12.3 million doses have been administered since Friday, according to the latest available data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 31.2 million doses were distributed.
Elected President Joe Biden, who will take office on Wednesday, has promised to accelerate the explosion of the vaccine with a promise to administer 100 million doses within 100 days. On Sunday, dr. Rochelle Walensky, Biden’s choice to run the CDC, said she believes the US will have sufficient vaccine supply to achieve the goal.
“It’s going to be a hefty lift, but we have enough to do,” Walensky said on CBS ‘”Face the Nation.”
Covid hospitalizations
Although Covid vaccinations are critical to limiting the impact of the disease, Maron warns that the U.S. coronavirus outbreak is a current threat. On Tuesday, Covid’s death toll in the country eclipsed 400,000, just over a month after 300,000 deaths were recorded, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Maron said Covid hospitalizations at Holy Name Medical Center are not at the levels seen earlier in the pandemic, as in March and April. The hospital also now has better treatments for patients, he said. Nevertheless, he said one of the concerns was the age of patients admitted to the hospital.
“This is not who you would think,” Maron said. “It’s mostly people between 45 and 65, so it’s not the frail elderly that everyone has been talking about. It’s the ones who’s in the fans, so we’s kind of worried.”
He said it was not clear what was causing the hospitalization among younger residents in the US. “For us here in the industry, it’s a reminder that it’s still a very, very serious and deadly virus. We should not take it lightly.”