Biden administration partners with Texas for 3 new centers of mass

The Biden administration will partner with Texas officials to build three new community vaccination centers, in Dallas, Arlington and Houston, a member of President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 response team said on Wednesday.

The three centers, which will be operational the week of February 22, will allow health care providers to administer a total of more than 10,000 injections per day, Jeff Zients, Tsar Covid of Biden, told reporters in a statement. White House press briefing on the pandemic. “We are immediately deploying teams to work hand in hand with the state and local jurisdiction,” he said.

Zients also said later Wednesday that he would join New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at a press briefing to officially announce the development of two new Covid vaccination centers in that state to help distribute vaccines to “evil communities.” served ”.

The announcements come days after the administration announced it was sending active duty troops to California to help staff the Covid-19 vaccination sites there. Biden is trying to speed up the pace of vaccinations in the United States after a slower-than-expected rollout under former President Donald Trump, and federal officials are also pushing states to administer vaccines more quickly.

The troops will arrive in California this week and begin operations on Monday, US officials said.

According to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 33 million of some 331 million Americans have received at least their first dose of two-dose Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna. And 9.8 million of those people have already had their second chance.

U.S. officials are also hoping the vaccine supply will increase after Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine is cleared for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration, which could happen as early as this month. The FDA has scheduled a meeting of its Vaccines and Related Biologics Advisory Committee on February 26 to discuss the vaccine, and the United States may clear the vaccine the next day.

Last week, Andy Slavitt, senior advisor to Biden’s Covid-19 response team, said some healthcare providers were routinely withholding vaccines for second vaccines, leading to the cancellation of appointments for them. vaccines and preventing some Americans from receiving their first doses.

“We want to be clear that we understand why healthcare providers have done this, but that it shouldn’t and shouldn’t happen,” he told reporters on February 1, adding that U.S. officials know that Covid vaccine shipments to states were often unpredictable during the early deployment in late December.

White House chief medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday many states were already overtaking immunizations for health care providers, nursing homes and the elderly and starting to open doors for people suffering from underlying health problems.

He urged people with these conditions to get vaccinated, saying they were more vulnerable to severe Covid-19. “They are the ones who should be vaccinated,” he added. “This is something that will benefit you greatly.”