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A growing number of COVID-19 vaccination sites in the United States are canceling thousands of appointments due to vaccine shortages in a deployment so confused that even the new CDC director admitted she was unsure of exactly how many vaccines were in progress.
States waited for their last weekly vaccine allocation from the federal government on Tuesday amid complaints from governors and senior health officials about inadequate supplies and the need for faster and more reliable estimates of the amount going in order to be able to plan accordingly. .
President Joe Biden suggested on Monday that he hopes the country can soon increase to 1.5 million doses distributed per day. Her administration also pledged more openness and said she would hold media briefings three times a week on the epidemic that has killed more than 420,000 Americans.
Amid growing frustration, the White House Biden scheduled its first virus-related appeal with the country’s governors on Tuesday. The president was planning to take stock of efforts to boost the vaccine supply and send more hits to Americans faster, Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
The setup inherited from the Trump administration has been marked by poor communication and unexplained bottlenecks, with shortages reported in some places even as vaccine doses sit on the shelves.
Dr Rochelle Walensky, the newest director of Biden’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was herself baffled over the weekend as she tried to describe the 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 you, then I can’t tell governors, and I can’t tell public health officials. If they don’t know how many vaccines they’re getting, not just this week, but next week and the week after, they can’t plan.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday said the state is “at the mercy of what the federal government sends us” and cannot meet the growing demand from residents.
Officials in West Virginia, which has had one of the best vaccine delivery rates, said they had less than 11,000 first doses on hand, even after this week’s shipment.
“I’m screaming my head” for more, said Republican Gov. Jim Justice.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has said he does not expect the state’s allocation to increase in the coming weeks, which will limit progress in immunizing those now eligible, including people over 65 and first responders. Rhode Island officials said late last week they could not extend eligibility to those over 65 with current allowances, despite complaints from advocates for the elderly.
The weekly allocation cycle for the first doses begins on Monday evening, when federal officials examine vaccine availability data from manufacturers to determine how much each state can have. Allowances are based on the population of people 18 years of age and over in each jurisdiction.
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 begin the following Monday.
A similar but separate process for ordering second doses, which are to be administered three to four weeks after the first, begins each week on Sunday evening.
As of Tuesday morning, the CDC reported that just over half of the 41 million doses distributed to states had been put in people’s arms. That’s well below the hundreds of millions of doses that experts say will need to be administered to gain herd immunity and beat the epidemic.
The United States ranks fifth in the world for the number of doses administered relative to the country’s population, behind No. 1 Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Britain and Bahrain, according to the University of Oxford .
It’s not entirely clear why most of the injections available in the United States have not been distributed. But many vaccination sites apparently have large amounts of vaccine in reserve to ensure that people who have already received their first vaccine receive the required second vaccine on time.
Additionally, some state officials have complained about a time lag between when they report their vaccination numbers to the government and when the numbers are posted on the CDC’s website.
In the New Orleans area, Ochsner Health said Monday that insufficient supply forced the cancellation of 21,400 first-dose appointments last week, but second-dose appointments were not affected.
Inova Health System, the largest health care provider in suburban Washington, DC, Virginia, said it was canceling all first-dose appointments at its mass vaccination clinics starting Thursday due to insufficient supply. Second dose appointments will be honored.
In North Carolina, Greensboro-based Cone Health announced it was canceling first-dose appointments for 10,000 people and placing them on a wait list due to supply issues.
Jesse Williams, 81, of Reidsville, North Carolina, said his appointment Thursday with Cone Health had been canceled and he was waiting to find out when it could be rescheduled. The former volunteer firefighter had hoped the vaccine would allow him to resume attending church, playing golf and seeing friends.
“It’s just a frustration that we expected to have our hits and be a little more resistant to COVID-19,” he said.
The rollout of the vaccine in the European Union to 27 countries has also encountered roadblocks and has also been criticized as being too slow. Pfizer delays deliveries as it modernizes its plant in Belgium to increase capacity. And AstraZeneca has revealed that its initial shipment will be smaller than expected.
The EU, which has 450 million citizens, demands that pharmaceutical companies meet their commitments on time.
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Associated Press editors in the United States contributed to this report.
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Find the full PA coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic
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