Dr. Anthony Fauci has warned Americans could wear masks until 2022 as he said the harsh winter storms affecting the country this week have slowed the distribution of six million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The White House chief medical adviser told NBC on Sunday, “The number was 6 million doses being delayed.”
But the country’s top infectious disease expert said on Sunday it was just a “ temporary setback, ” adding, “ We can catch up pretty well. We’ve made two million, and we expect to catch up by mid-week. ‘
Bad weather in the South and Northeast earlier this week snapped vaccine deliveries and forced the cancellation of countless shots across the country. The CDC admitted “ widespread delays in the shipping and delivery of Covid-19 vaccines. ”
In much of the country, including Texas, Georgia and Alabama, the snowy, slippery weather led to vaccination sites being closed or stopped shipments, with delays expected to last for days.
President Joe Biden is trying to speed up the campaign to vaccinate most American adults as local governments call for more doses to prevent the highly contagious disease that has claimed nearly 500,000 lives in the United States.
Asked if Americans can expect to still wear masks next year, Fauci told CNN, “ I think it may be, ” adding that it depended on the level of the virus in communities and possible virus variants .
“Obviously, I think we will have a significant degree of normalcy, apart from the awful burden we’ve all endured over the past year,” Fauci said.
He told Fox News that the US will have 600 million doses of coronavirus vaccines by July. “By July we will have enough, we will have the 600 million doses that we have contracted,” he added.
The US administered 57 million doses of the COVID injection; 41 million people have had their first vaccine, 16 million have been fully vaccinated.
The sudden shutdown of the vaccination drive is because daily figures for Saturday show that the number of people in hospital with the coronavirus continues to drop with 58,000 registered. It’s the lowest number in more than three and a half months.
In the past 24 hours, there were 2,074 daily deaths. Levels are now comparable to those seen before last spring and summer’s virus spikes.
Although daily infection rates are dropping dramatically, thousands of Americans still die from the virus every day and less than 15% of the U.S. population is vaccinated against it.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has said the harsh winter storms experienced across the country this week have slowed the distribution of six million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
The US administered 57 million doses of the COVID injection; 41 million people have had their first vaccine, 16 million have been fully vaccinated
The icy blast across much of the US this week added confusion and frustration to the country’s COVID-19 vaccination drive.
In Texas, health officials said more than 100,000 first doses and 300,000 second doses to be delivered this week were still waiting to be shipped to the state.
The missed doses are expected in the first half of next week.
Several vaccination sites in Houston reopened at the end of this week. A new massive FEMA vaccination site at NRG Park in the city promises to vaccinate 42,000 people per week.
Over much of the country, including Texas, Georgia and Alabama, the snowy, slippery weather led to vaccination sites being closed or necessary shipments to be halted, with delays expected to last for days
People with appointments for the COVID-19 vaccine will wait outside the Westchester County Center in White Plains, NY Wednesday. New York City neared a dramatic slowdown in vaccine rollout on Saturday with just 1,000 doses on hand after snowstorms delayed vaccine shipments.
New York City neared a dramatic slowdown in vaccine rollout on Saturday with just 1,000 doses on hand after snowstorms delayed vaccine shipments.
Delayed shipments have shut down our entire vaccination effort. As of this morning, New York City has less than 1,000 first doses on hand. ‘ Avery Cohen, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, wrote on Twitter.
It has led local officials to plead with vaccination centers to extend their opening hours and make additional appointments.
When it comes to the vaccination effort, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio explained on Friday that New York City had to delay scheduling up to 35,000 first-dose appointments for people due to the shortage.
Those whose appointments were not canceled over the weekend were still able to receive their photos.
New York State is also planning appointments for new mass vaccination sites to open Wednesday in Brooklyn and Queens in partnership with FEMA, according to the New York Times.
State officials said they had received 40 percent of their vaccination allotment for the week and expected the rest to be handed out on Sunday.
The main reason for the delay came after bad weather shut down two major vaccine transportation hubs: the FedEx center in Memphis and a similar UPS site in Louisville, Kentucky, through which the batches pass.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency noted that 2,000 other vaccine sites were in areas with power outages.
A public health expert said the delays were unacceptable.
“The fact that vaccine centers are taking snow days is going to support things more than they already are,” says Dr. Amesh Adalja, Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “The virus doesn’t need snowy days.”
Adalja said the people responsible for vaccination need to find ways to be more resistant to the weather, “just as postmen can deliver the mail through sleet or snow.” He suggested that clinics use better contingency plans. The goal, he said, should be “a continuous assembly line of vaccines going into people’s arms.”
The sudden shutdown of the vaccination drive is because daily figures for Saturday show that the number of people in hospital with the coronavirus continues to drop with 58,000 registered. It’s the lowest number in more than three and a half months
In the past 24 hours, there were 2,074 daily deaths. Levels are now comparable to those seen before last spring and summer’s virus spikes
Jo Dohogne of Bartlett, Tennessee, said she had two appointments scheduled this week to receive her second dose of the Moderna vaccine, but both were canceled due to bad weather.
Dohogne, 75, who has multiple sclerosis, said she felt abandoned as the six weeks approached for her second dose following her first vaccination on Jan. 14.
“I’m just stressed … it’s like this is taking up my whole life,” Dohogne said.
In Washington, White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients said that in places where vaccination centers have closed, such as Texas, the government is encouraging sites to extend their hours of operation once they open.
“ We want to make sure our partners are doing everything they can to make up for that lost ground, as we have lost some time in some states getting needles in weapons.
In southern Nevada, officials reported that winter storms had delayed a shipment of Moderna vaccines to be delivered as a second dose this week.
The US vaccinates an average of 1.7 million Americans a day against COVID-19, up from less than 1 million a month ago. New figures from the White House show a steady increase in the rate of vaccinations from President Joe Biden’s first month in office.
After the first Covid-19 death was announced in the US in February 2020, it took about three months to cross the 100,000 mark, in a first wave that hit New York particularly hard.
But as the outbreak grew in the United States, the pace of deaths accelerated, rising from 400,000 tolls in just over a month amid a spike fueled in part by holiday gatherings.
‘It’s terrible. It’s historical. We haven’t seen anything close to this for over a hundred years since the 1918 flu pandemic, ”Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to US President Joe Biden, told NBC’s“ Meet The Press.
“It’s something that’s astonishing when you look at the numbers, almost unbelievable, but it’s true,” he added, while the toll on the Johns Hopkins University tracking website was 497,600.
