Vaccine shortages slamming states
Thousands see appointments for a first dose being canceled
NEW YORK — The push to inoculate Americans against the coronavirus is hitting a roadblock: Several states say they’re running out of vaccine, and tens of thousands of people who got appointments for a first dose are seeing them canceled.
Karen Stachowiak, a first-grade teacher in the Buffalo area, spent almost five hours on the state hotline and website to land an appointment for Wednesday, only to be told it was canceled. The Erie County Health Department said it scratched vaccinations for over 8,000 people in the past few days because of inadequate supply.
“It’s stressful because I was so close. And my other friends that are teachers, they were able to book appointments for last Saturday,” Stachowiak said. “So many people are getting theirs in, and then it’s like, ‘Nope, I’ve got to wait.’ ”
The reason for the apparent mismatch between supply and demand in the U.S. was unclear, but last week the Health and Human Services Department suggested that states had unrealistic expectations for how much vaccine was on the way.
In any case, new shipments go out every week, and both the government and the drugmakers have said large quantities are in the pipeline.
The shortages are coming as states dramatically ramp up their vaccination drives, at the federal government’s direction, to reach people 65 and older, along with certain others. More than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. have been blamed on the virus.
President Joe Biden, who was inaugurated Wednesday, immediately came under pressure to fix things. He has made clear his administration will take a stronger hand in attacking the crisis, and he vowed to administer 100 million shots in his first 100 days.
Less than half of the 36 million doses distributed to the states by the federal government have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Public health officials have said the gap could reflect recordkeeping delays as well as disarray and other failings at various levels of government in actually getting shots into arms.
In a statement, HHS said that jurisdictions actually received about a 5 percent increase in vaccine allocations this week from what they got in the past couple of weeks.
Countries across Europe also are having problems getting enough doses to provide protection against a virus that’s now appearing in new, more contagious variants around the globe.
Pfizer said last week it would temporarily reduce deliveries to Europe and Canada while it upgrades capacity at its plant in Belgium, which supplies all shots delivered outside the United States. Pfizer’s primary site for manufacturing vaccine for the U.S. is in Kalamazoo, Mich.
In the U.S., some states have suggested they may run out by Thursday and don’t know when new doses will arrive.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that the city had to cancel 23,000 appointments for people awaiting their first dose this week. The New York Police Department suspended first-shot vaccinations for its officers.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he expects the state to exhaust its supply of vaccine within two or three days for people seeking their first dose.
“What’s clear now is we’ll be going from week to week, and you will see a constant pattern of basically running out, waiting for the next week’s allocation, and starting up again,” he said. He urged health care facilities not to schedule appointments to dispense vaccine they haven’t been allocated.
In Florida, local media reported a similar problem in the Miami area, where the Baptist Health care system canceled appointments for first doses.
“I could have blown the top of my head off with steam,” 76-yearold Charlotte Reeve told the Miami Herald. “I’m also a fairly recent widow. To me, having to be locked up in my house alone is just devastating to me. … I feel like I just got cut off at the knees again.”