WASHINGTON (AP) – The Trump administration is asking states to speed up the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to people 65 and older and to others at high risk by no longer holding the second dose of the two-dose shots, said officials Tuesday.
Alex Azar, secretary of health and human services, said that “the government in the states was too narrow.”
As a result, he said, the Trump administration is now asking states to vaccinate people 65 and older and those under 65 with underlying health conditions that put them at high risk. He said the vaccine production is of such a nature that the second dose of the two-shot vaccine can be released without endangering the vaccination for those who received the first shot.
“We now believe that our manufacturing is predictable enough to ensure that second doses are available to people who have continuous production,” Azar told ABC’s Good Morning America. “So everything is now available to our states and our healthcare providers.”
Each state has its own plan for who to vaccinate, based on recommendations from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC recommendations give first priority to health care workers and nursing home residents.
But the slow rate of vaccination has frustrated many Americans at a time when the death toll from the coronavirus is still rising. According to the Johns Hopkins database, more than 376,000 people have died.
Azar said it was now time to move on to “the next phase of the vaccination program” and expand the pool of those eligible to receive the first dose.
It also means that the number of places where people can be vaccinated needs to be expanded through community health centers and additional drug stores.
“We have already distributed more vaccines than health care workers and people in nursing homes have,” Azar said. ‘We need to get to more channels of administration. We need to get it at pharmacies, and get it at community health centers. ”
He said the federal government “will deploy teams to support states that do mass vaccinations if they want to do so.”
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said hundreds of thousands of people are being vaccinated daily across the country, but the rate of vaccinations needs to improve.
“We’re in a race against this virus and honestly, we’re behind,” Adams told Fox & Friends. ‘The good news is that 700,000 people are vaccinated every day. We are going to hit 1 million people and we must continue to increase the pace. ‘
Elected President Joe Biden is expected to deliver a speech on Thursday outlining his plan to speed up vaccination to more people in the first part of his term. His transition team has promised to release as many vaccine doses as possible, rather than continuing the Trump administration’s policy of holding back millions of doses to ensure there would be enough stock to give those who get the first chance a second one gain.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine requires a second ingestion approximately three weeks after the first vaccination. Another vaccine, this one manufactured by Moderna, requires a second shot about four weeks later. One-vaccine vaccines are still being tested.