Alex Azar, secretary of health and human services, on Wednesday called on states to “micromanage” their permitted doses of coronavirus vaccines and said it was better to take the shots as soon as possible, even if they could not vaccinate all their health workers. .
“There is no reason for states to have to complete, says the vaccination of all health care providers, before vaccinating for older Americans or other particularly vulnerable populations,” Azar said in a newsletter to reporters.
“If they use all the vaccine that is distributed, ordered, distributed, shipped and they get it in the healthcare providers, it’s a wonderful thing,” he added. “But if their distribution is struggling for some reason and their vaccination is put in freezers, then you should definitely open it up to people 70 years and older.”
U.S. officials are trying to replenish the rate of vaccinations after a slower initial implementation than expected. The coronavirus pandemic in the US continues to escalate, with the country recording at least 219,200 new Covid-19 cases and at least 2,670 virus-related deaths every day, based on an average of seven days calculated by CNBC using data from the Johns Hopkins University.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has given states an outline that recommends that health care workers and nursing homes be prioritized first, but states can distribute the vaccine as they see fit.
Azar said on Wednesday that states providing “flexibility” for those receiving the first doses is the best way to get a shot in the arm faster. “Faster administration can save lives at the moment, which means we can not make the enemy of the good perfect,” he said. “Hope is here in the form of vaccines.”
According to the CDC, more than 4.8 million people in the U.S. received their first dose of coronavirus vaccine as of Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET. That number is far from the federal government’s goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans by the end of 2020, and 50 million Americans by the end of this month.
U.S. officials acknowledged that the distribution of vaccines was slower than they had hoped. Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told STAT News on Tuesday that she expects vaccination vaccinations to accelerate “fairly massively” in the coming weeks.
“These are the early stages of a very complicated task, but a task we are working for,” she told STAT.
Global health experts said the distribution of the vaccines over 331 million Americans could be much more complicated and chaotic than initially thought within a few months. In addition to producing enough doses, states and territories also need enough needles, syringes and bottles to complete the vaccinations.
The logistics of obtaining and administering the vaccine are complex, requiring special training. Pfizer’s vaccine, for example, requires a storage temperature of minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit. Both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines cannot be frozen and must be administered at room temperature and within hours, or they may be at risk.
Read more: The long journey of the Covid vaccine: how doses from the factory reach your arm
Azar also said the holiday was likely to have played a factor in the slow deployment of the vaccines, saying healthcare providers knew it would be difficult to set up millions of people for vaccinations by December.
Nearly 20 million doses of vaccine have been delivered to more than 13,000 locations across the country, Army General Gustave Perna, who oversees the logistics for President Donald Trump’s vaccination program Operation Warp Speed, said during the same briefing.
The distribution of vaccines is going “very well”, he said, adding officials are still working to improve the process. “Our goal is to maintain the steady drumming so that states have a cadence of allocation planning and then the appropriate distribution to the right places as designated.”
‘We always evaluate the numbers and make sure that distribution takes place in the right places [and] to ensure that the implementation takes place so that other decisions can be made about awards, ”he added.