The record day comes as the federal government and states come to criticize efforts to distribute vaccines.
Many Chicago area health systems say they don’t know when they’ll get their next batch of vaccines, and the city’s mayor is blaming the federal government again.
The US contracted more than 20 million COVID-19 infections just as the pandemic entered its second calendar year.
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“We have more cases, we have more hospitalizations, we have trips that will lead to even more spikes in January. Now we have this new version of the virus that will spread more easily and make our hospitals even more crowded,” said Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician from Brown University.
And that’s in the tail end of the pandemic’s deadliest month, as more than 1,000 Americans a day were dying from the coronavirus since December 1.
As Indiana ends its deadliest week, city and state officials are expressing concern that shipments of the vaccine are not coming as promised, and not nearly soon enough.
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Chicago has already distributed> 95% of the COVID-19 vaccine doses it has received. However, at the current federal government dose allocation rate, it would take 71 weeks – almost a year and a half – to fully vaccinate the entire city. We need more vaccine now, ”Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a tweet on Saturday.
Last Sunday, outgoing President Donald Trump claimed via Twitter that “the vaccines are being delivered to states by the federal government much faster than they can be delivered!”
The vaccines are being delivered to the states by the federal government much faster than they can be delivered!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2021
“That’s a logistical failure,” said Dr. Ranney.
Across the country, only about 4.2 million Americans have been vaccinated so far, which is 79% less than the Trump administration’s target of 20 million by the New Year.
“So it just doesn’t work and no state is right,” said Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney.
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As health systems work to get their employees and first responders vaccinated as soon as possible, Will County is asking its residents to register online to streamline the process once the vaccine is more widely available.
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