Bad weather causes delays in Covid-19 vaccine shipments and deliveries, White House says

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“The CDC and federal partners are working closely with jurisdictions, as well as with manufacturing and shipping partners, to assess weather conditions and to help mitigate potential delivery delays and cancellations,” Psaki said. during a White House briefing.

Psaki said the White House Covid-19 response team was in constant communication with local officials and White House officials had had numerous calls, emails and one-on-one meetings with States, tribes, territories and key partners on the impact. of the storm over vaccination efforts.

“We are also working with our partners to increase scheduled deliveries where possible and to speed up shipping operations through weekends through weekends. We are in discussions about extended hours and extra appointments to try to postpone the shots given the storm, ”Psaki said.

Psaki said the aim was to ensure that access to vaccines remains as “stable and equitable” as possible.

Widespread power outages in Texas have cascaded serious problems with the state’s supply of heat, water, food and medicine. Electricity was out for about 500,000 Texas customers as of Thursday morning – a drop from the more than 3 million outages the day before, according to Poweroutage.us. The Texas Electric Reliability Council (ERCOT), which operates the state’s power grid, said in a statement Thursday morning that it had made “significant progress” in restoring power overnight.

But the winter storm and continuing cold were still affecting the system’s power generation, and rotating blackouts could be required over the next few days, the company said.

Psaki said President Joe Biden has received updates on Texas and surrounding states affected by bad weather more than once a day.

“Making sure the people of Texas, the people of the surrounding states have the resources they need is something he brings up frequently in meetings and has been doing for the past two days,” Psaki said.

The president ordered his team to “make quick decisions and respond to the specific needs of states as they arise during this difficult time.”

The Biden administration has approved federal emergency declarations for Texas and Oklahoma, Homeland Security Advisor and Deputy National Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall said at the White House briefing Thursday. She said the Federal Emergency Management Agency was also processing a request for a federal declaration of emergency from Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat.

Sherwood-Randall said FEMA “is providing generators to support water treatment plants, hospitals and nursing homes in Texas” and “also providing blankets, meals and other supplies on demand. of the Governor of Texas “.

“The extreme weather events that we are experiencing this week in the South Central and now in the Eastern United States demonstrate once again that climate change is real and is happening now and that we are not. sufficiently prepared for it, ”Sherwood- Randall said.

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