President Biden may have raised hope prematurely when he said he expected that in the spring, every American who wants a COVID-19 vaccination could get one.
Still, he didn’t go so far as to determine which month, leaving open the possibility that ‘spring’ means mid-June on the eve of summer. Nevertheless, the White House quickly set that expectation down.
“Everyone will not be eligible this spring, as you all know, even as the CDC continues to issue updated guidelines,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday. “But [Mr. Biden] would definitely defer to health and medical experts and of course the guidance of Dr. Fauci on when we can be on the pace of achieving herd immunity. ”
The White House clarified that 100 million vaccinations in the first 100 days of Mr. Biden’s presidency are still the official target, as originally planned, after Mr. Biden expressed the hope that 150 million COVID injections in his first 100 days could take place. And the goal of 100 million in 100 days is one of the nation’s top infectious disease experts, Dr. Anthony Fauci, seems to agree that it is realistic. “Once you get rolling and get some momentum, I think we can hit 1 million a day or even more,” he told the Associated Press earlier this month.
At the rate of 1 million shots a day, it would take the rest of 2021 to vaccinate about 70% of American adults. That could be in the range of herd immunity, the point where the rate of transmission of the disease is slowing, although scientists are not yet sure what percentage of the population needs to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity to COVID-19.
The White House also hasn’t yet said when younger Americans with no pre-existing health problems who aren’t essential workers can expect their photos.
The government has taken steps to increase vaccine production and announced it late Tuesday it plans to purchase an additional 200 million Pfizer and Moderna vaccine doses, which it hopes will be available in the summer, although the goal of 100 million doses in 100 days does not depend on the approval of new vaccines.
Experts in public health and medical supply chains say a number of factors will be decisive in accelerating the distribution of the vaccine to the general population – essentially adults under the age of 65 who have no underlying health problems and are not key workers.
“Everyone should recognize that scaling up to 400 million doses of a vaccine that we didn’t have a year ago will take time,” says Dr. Julie Swann, Head of Industrial and Systems Engineering at North Carolina State University. . “I don’t expect the general public to have access in late spring unless some coincidental things happen between now and then.”
The key components involved in meeting the vaccination goal are delivery, distribution and administration, said Prashant Yadav, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and associate professor of technology and operations management at INSEAD. And they are “equally important and not self-evident,” he said.
Yadav thinks vaccine production needs to be near ‘perfect’ to meet demand, but still believes vaccines could be available to the general public in May or early June. But March or April, he said, is “highly unattainable.”
Dr. Bruce Y. Lee, a professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Public Policy and executive director of Public Health Informatics, Computational and Operations Research, told CBS News he is concerned about the “multiple bottlenecks” in vaccine rollout. Distribution and administration has been slower than expected.
Identifying where the bottlenecks are in the supply chain and will reveal whether a spring timeline is “attainable or ambitious,” he said.
“It’s not just the number of vaccines that matters,” said Lee. “It matters who actually gets them,” said Lee.
Residents could be vaccinated more quickly if states ignore priority guidelines, but that would be counterproductive to the goal of protecting the most vulnerable, Lee said. There are anecdotes about cutting lines rich Americans, and in other cases, people who aren’t on top-priority lists get injections because of the pressure not to waste the highly perishable doses.
“Because the reconstituted Pfizer vaccine must be used or disposed of within hours, different doses were administered to non-primary health care workers so that valuable vaccine would not be thrown away,” said Nikyah Thomas-Pfeiffer, a spokesman for Redlands Community Hospital in a statement. statement. .
And keeping up with the pace of a million shots a day could get more difficult, Lee and others said, noting that vaccinations started with “low-hanging fruit” in places like hospitals and long-term care centers. As the options for getting the vaccine broaden, some populations may be more difficult to reach, depending on where they live and what their socio-economic circumstances are. It will be more difficult to reach US residents who don’t speak English or have regular access to healthcare, Lee noted.
Government governments are starting to feel pressure to vaccinate less vulnerable populations, Lee said, especially from large employers looking to vaccinate their workers so they can return to work safely.
Biden’s administration needs to assess for itself where the bottlenecks are in vaccine distribution, Lee said. It is starting to address this by announcing new vaccination schedules this week that will give states more information upfront about their vaccine shipments, helping them better plan their distribution.
The federal government could also get more people to be vaccinated faster by setting up or supporting vaccination sites, said Yadav, who is developing Biden, according to the government.
Swann said administering vaccines would be more efficient if every state had a website where people could sign up to get their photos, rather than going through local health departments. But there are currently only a handful of states with a centralized vaccination registration system or waiting list, according to a recent review from the Wall Street Journal.
New Jersey has a statewide registration system. In California and New Jersey, residents can pre-register to be notified when it’s their turn, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be lining up to get the vaccine. South Dakota does not have a statewide waiting list, but it does direct residents to local health care providers where they can find a waiting list.
“Ultimately, I think we’ll have enough vaccine for all Americans who want one, and extra boosters if they are needed,” said Swann. “New processes take time, but the supply will increase.”
Alexander Tin contributed to this report.