U.S. rollout spawns new problems

The rapid expansion of COVID-19 vaccinations to senior citizens across the U.S. has led to bottlenecks, system crashes and hard feelings in many states because of overwhelming demand for the shots.

Mississippi’s Health Department stopped taking new appointments the same day it began accepting them because of a “monumental surge” in requests. People had to wait hours to book vaccinations through a state website or a toll-free number Tuesday and Wednesday, and many were booted off the site because of technical problems and had to start over.

In California, counties begged for more coronavirus vaccine to reach millions of its senior citizens. In South Carolina, hospitals ran out appointment slots within hours.

Up until the past few days, health care workers and nursing home patients had largely been given priority in most places around the U.S. But amid frustration over the slow rollout, states have thrown open the line to many of the nation’s senior citizens with the blessing of the Trump administration, though the minimum age varies from place to place, at 65, 70 or higher.

The U.S., meanwhile, recorded 3,848 deaths on Wednesday, down from an all-time high of 4,327 the day before, according to Johns Hopkins University. The nation’s overall death toll from COVID-19 has topped 385,000.

More than 11.1 million Americans, or over 3% of the U.S. population, have gotten their first shot of the vaccine, a gain of about 800,000 from the day before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. The goal of inoculating anywhere between 70% and 85% of the population to achieve herd immunity and conquer the outbreak is still many months away.

California, which has seen a surge of deaths and hospitalizations since last fall, had received more than 2.4 million doses as of Monday, but only a third of them had been used.