US top health officials encouraged states to vaccinate people on a larger scale, acknowledged that the rollout of immunization was slower than expected, and opened the tap for a wider range of Americans to start getting injections.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar blamed the introduction of Covid-19 shots around the holiday season and overly detailed state plans to obstruct the vaccination campaign on Wednesday during a phone call with reporters. He urged governors to vaccinate more seniors and other high-risk populations to prevent shots from getting stuck in freezers.
Photographer: Micah Green / Bloomberg
When governors “use all of the vaccine that’s been assigned, ordered, shipped, distributed, they get it into the arms of the health care providers, which is great,” Azar said. “But if their distribution is for some reason difficult and they have vaccines in freezers, then at least you should open it. until 70 years and older, 65 years and older. You have to make sure that the patients in the nursing home are vaccinated. “
According to data collected by Bloomberg News, approximately 5.2 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc. have been received as of mid-December. administered in the US. That’s about 31% of doses distributed so far, according to Bloomberg’s tracker.
Speed up plans
Azar and other Operation Warp Speed officials said they expect vaccinations to speed up, although they declined to give the number of injections administered daily and how many they expect to receive by the end of the month. Director of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins said during an interview with the Washington Post earlier Wednesday that he expects the US to give about 1 million shots per day, a number that Operation Warp Speed officials have said. rejected comment.
HHS has announced it will give $ 3 billion to states, territories and some cities to support Covid-19 vaccinations. The department will also provide $ 19.1 billion to jurisdictions for testing, contact tracking, and other measures to mitigate pandemics.
Azar said the administration has been investigating factors that have delayed the rollout in recent weeks. Operation Warp Speed will tap into its partnership with more than a dozen pharmacy chains to increase vaccinations sooner than expected. Azar said states can send doses to participating locations.
(Updates with additional details in the last two paragraphs.)