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Some states have expressed disappointment with the deployment, acknowledging their own issues, but also seeking more federal resources amid concerns about the burden they now have to pass vaccines into the arms of patients. In several cases, local snafus on the ground have created their own delays, not to mention dangerous and costly mistakes.
With no federal mandate on how to administer the vaccine, it is up to states to decide who will get the vaccine and when, creating a confusing patchwork of rules that vary widely across the country. While some states focus exclusively on healthcare workers, others have also started vaccinating the elderly and other frontline workers.
West Virginia Governor Jim Justice announced that people over the age of 80 were eligible to receive the vaccine on Wednesday, while the Tennessee Department of Health said it would begin administering the vaccine to residents of 75 years and over, teachers and educators.
Texas has distributed only a third of the vaccines it has received so far, according to figures posted on the state’s Vaccine Dashboard. And in Ohio, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said he was not happy with the number of vaccines that have been administered in his state, as well as the compliance of those from priority groups choosing to receive the vaccine.
Several states have also said it is difficult to plan a vaccine rollout when their Trump administration supply figures are constantly changing and they only receive vaccine supply information on a weekly basis.
“There is no federal organization, no federal deployment, there is no coordination between the federal government and the state governments,” Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, a Democrat, said Thursday. , on CNN “Newsroom”.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday on NBC’s “Today” that the federal government could still help states speed up vaccine delivery without controlling every step. “Rather than stepping in and taking over, I think it might be better to give more resources and work with them, in tandem with them,” said Fauci, who also advises President-elect Joe. Biden. “In other words, not to say that we are taking over, we are going to do your job, but to say that we are really going to help you do your job, including giving you a lot more resources.”
States are realizing, however, that they are not currently receiving a significant increase in federal funding, after the latest stimulus bill passed in Congress without billions of dollars in state and local relief to which Republicans s ‘were opposed.
Trump administration officials insist a delay in state immunization reporting is one reason for the low numbers, but they acknowledged this week that even with the lag, the numbers are lagging behind and the federal government needs to do a better job of tackling the bottlenecks.
“We know it should be better, and we are working hard to improve it,” Dr Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser for Operation Warp Speed, said at a press briefing on Wednesday.
A big problem, according to a Republican state official, is that states have been placed in charge of all logistical decisions to get the vaccine to suppliers once they have received shipments from the federal government, especially the so-called “last mile” of the vaccine. travel before being given to individuals.
Another challenge has been the complex vaccine storage and transport needs, as many providers do not have the tools to manage storage needs. This official also noted that many medical facilities also had to provide training on handling and administering the vaccine.
An HHS spokesperson defended the administration’s work with states, tweeting that “the CDC issued $ 340 million to jurisdictions for influenza / COVID vaccinations in September. The CDC issued an additional $ 140 million to jurisdictions for COVID vaccinations in December ”.
A senior Trump administration official pointed out that failure by states to report more quickly is contributing to the delay, which Operation Warp Speed COO Gustave Perna has said is “tightening up” as that relationships will become more routine. But unlike Trump, other administration officials acknowledged there were gaps and room for improvement.
“We would have liked to see it go smoothly and have 20 million doses in people today by the end of 2020, which was the projection. Obviously, that didn’t happen. ‘is disappointing, “Fauci said Thursday.
“No translation”
The United States has so far granted emergency clearance for two vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, and more could go live in the United States next year, which would help speed up the deadline for vaccination of people.
Both vaccines require two doses: the Pfizer vaccine requires a second dose 21 days later and the Moderna vaccine 28 days later. At this time, these second doses have been withheld by the federal government, so they will be available and administered when needed to provide these second doses.
But Fauci suggested Thursday that staggering first doses to more people is “under study” to help expand the number of people who can get vaccinated, although this opens the risk that manufacturing issues could prevent people to receive the second vaccine.
“I still think that, if done correctly, you can do a single dose, reserve doses for the second dose and continue to do the job,” Fauci said in Today, “but there is a lot of talk about. whether or not you want to expand the initial vaccination by getting more people vaccinated in the first round. “
CNN medical analyst Dr Leana Wen and former Baltimore health commissioner said the federal government should have built and funded an infrastructure to distribute the vaccine months ago while it was still in development and in speeding up production.
“What’s wrong with this process? We need real-time monitoring to see where the heist is,” Wen said Thursday in CNN’s “Newsroom”. “We need a lot more dedicated resources for distribution and not just scientific development, because otherwise Operation Warp Speed for science clearly does not translate to warp speed for distribution.”
Problems related to vaccine delivery times are not universal across the country. Some state officials say they are satisfied with the system so far.
“We knew it was a complicated process. We were surprised at how smooth it went,” a Southeast state official told CNN.
But those sentiments underscore the divide within states, with many public health officials saying they still need more funding.
“State health services are being pushed to the limit to fight Covid, to do testing. The county and the locals are in the same boat,” a Northeast state official told CNN. “It’s not just about the scale of the vaccination operation, but putting that on top of what states are already facing.”
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