Biden administration to boost vaccine supply
The Biden administration is giving states an approximately 17% boost in vaccine next week, following complaints around the U.S. of shortages so severe that some vaccination sites had to cancel tens of thousands of appointments with people waiting for their first shot.
Detailed figures posted on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website Tuesday showed that the government plans to make about 10.1 million first and second doses available next week, up from this week’s allotment of 8.6 million. The figures represent doses of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
The increase comes as vaccination sites around the U.S. are canceling large numbers of appointments because of vaccine shortages. Governors and top health officials have complained about inadequate supplies and the need for earlier and more reliable estimates of how much is on the way, so that they can plan accordingly.
Amid the rising frustration, the Biden White House scheduled its first virus-related call with the nation’s governors Tuesday. President Joe Biden planned to give an update on efforts to bolster the vaccine supply and put more shots into Americans’ arms more quickly, press secretary Jen Psaki said.
420,000 deaths
The administration has also promised more openness and said it will hold news briefings three times a week about the outbreak that has killed over 420,000 Americans.
The setup inherited from the Trump administration has been marked by miscommunication and unexplained bottlenecks, with shortages reported in some places, even as vaccine doses remain on shelves.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Biden’s new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was flummoxed over the weekend in trying to describe current supplies.
“I can’t tell you how much vaccine we have,” she told “Fox News Sunday,” describing the problem as a challenge left by the outgoing Trump administration. “And if I can’t tell it to you, then I can’t tell it to the governors, and I can’t tell it to the state health officials.”
On Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state is “at the mercy of what the federal government sends us” and can’t meet growing demand from residents.
Officials in West Virginia, which has had one of the best rates of administering vaccine, said they have fewer than 11,000 first doses on hand, even after this week’s shipment.
“I’m screaming my head off” for more, Republican Gov. Jim Justice said.
The weekly allocation cycle for first doses begins on Monday nights, when federal officials review data on vaccine availability from manufacturers to determine how much each state can have. Allocations are based on each jurisdiction’s population of people 18 and older.
States are notified on Tuesdays of their allocations through a computer network called Tiberius and other channels, after which they can specify where they want doses shipped. Deliveries start the following Monday.
A similar but separate process for ordering second doses, which must be given three to four weeks after the first, begins each week on Sunday night.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the CDC reported that just over half of the 44 million doses distributed to states have been put in people’s arms. That is well short of the hundreds of millions of doses that experts say will need to be administered to achieve herd immunity and conquer the outbreak.