An increasing number of COVID-19 vaccination centers in the US are canceling thousands of appointments due to the shortage of vaccines, which is so full of confusion that even the new CDC director admits she does not know exactly how many shots are in sight.
States on Tuesday waited to hear their latest federal government vaccine amid complaints from governors and top health officials about insufficient supplies and the need for earlier and more reliable estimates of how much is on the way.
President Joe Biden proposed Monday that he hopes the country could soon increase to 1.5 million shots a day. His government has also promised more openness, saying it will hold news conferences three times a week on the outbreak that killed more than 420,000 Americans.
Amid growing frustration, the Biden White House on Tuesday planned its first virus-related call with the country’s governors. The president planned to give an update on efforts to bolster the vaccine supply and put more shots into the arms of Americans more quickly, press secretary Jen Psaki said.
The set-up inherited from the Trump administration is marked by miscommunication and unexplained bottlenecks, with deficiencies reported in some places, even though the doses of vaccines are on the shelf.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Biden’s brand new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, herself was excited this past weekend to describe the current stock.
“I can not tell you how much vaccine we have,” she told Fox News Sunday, describing the problem as a challenge left by the outgoing Trump administration. “And if I can not tell you, I can not tell the governors, and I can not tell the state health officials. If they do not know how much vaccine they are getting, not just this week, but next week and the week after, they can not plan. ”
On Monday, the Government of Florida, Ron DeSantis said the state is ‘at the mercy of what the federal government is sending us’ and can not meet the growing demand of residents.
Officials in West Virginia, who had one of the best doses to administer the vaccine, said they had less than 11,000 first doses on hand even after this week’s dispatch.
“I’m screaming my head off” for more, “Republican Gov. Jim Justice said.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said he did not expect the state grant to increase in the coming weeks, limiting progress in vaccinating those now eligible, including people over 65 and first respondents. Rhode Island officials said late last week that they could not qualify for those over 65 at current awards, despite complaints from senior advocates.
The weekly first-dose allocation cycle begins on Monday evenings, when federal officials review data on manufacturers’ vaccine availability to determine how much each state may have. Grants are based on the population of 18 and older in each jurisdiction.
States are notified on Tuesdays of their awards via a computer network called Tiberius and other channels, after which they can specify where doses are to be sent. Deliveries begin next Monday.
A similar but separate process for ordering second doses, which should be given three to four weeks after the first dose, begins each week on Sunday evening.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the CDC reported that just over half of the 44 million doses distributed to states are in the arms of humans. This is far less than the hundreds of millions of doses that, according to experts, must be administered to bring about herd immunity and overcome the outbreak.
According to the University of Oxford, the US is fifth in the world in the number of doses administered to the country’s population, behind number 1 Israel, United Arab Emirates, Britain and Bahrain.
The reason why more of the available shots were not released in the US is not entirely clear. But many vaccination sites apparently keep large amounts of vaccine in reserve to make sure people who have already received their first shot receive the required second on schedule.
Some government officials have also complained about a delay between reporting their vaccination numbers to the government and when the figures are posted on the CDC website.
In the New Orleans area, Ochsner Health said Monday that insufficient supply forced the cancellation of 21,400 first-dose appointments last week, but that the second-dose appointments were not affected.
Inova Health System, the largest health care provider in the suburbs of Washington, DC, said it was starting all first-dose appointments at its massive vaccination clinics due to insufficient supplies. Second-dose appointments will be adhered to.
In North Carolina, Greensboro – based Cone Health has announced that it is canceling its first dose of appointments for 10,000 people and moving to a waiting list due to supply problems.
Jesse Williams, 81, of Reidsville, North Carolina, said his appointment with Cone Health was scrapped Thursday, and he is waiting to hear when it can be rescheduled. The former volunteer firefighter hoped the vaccine would enable him to go to church again, play golf and see friends.
“It’s just a frustration that we expected to take our shots and be a little more resilient towards COVID-19,” he said.
The explosion of vaccines in the European Union with 27 countries also landed roadblocks and was also criticized too slowly. Pfizer is delaying delivery as it upgrades its plant in Belgium to increase capacity. And AstraZeneca has announced that its initial shipment will be smaller than expected.
The EU, with 450 million citizens, is demanding that the pharmaceutical companies meet their obligations according to schedule.
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Associated Press writers across the U.S. contributed to this report.
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Find AP’s full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic