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A senior administration official told CNN that when the administration announced it would release reserved doses on Friday, many of those reserves had already been released into the system as of last year, as production was increasing.
When Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar was asked on Friday if there was in fact a reserve of second doses to be released, he replied, “No. There is no reserve reserve.”
“We are now sufficiently confident that our current production will be of quality and available to deliver the second dose to people, so we are no longer sitting on a reserve,” he said in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt. “We have made this available to states on order.”
The revelation appears to contradict what Azar announced at an Operation Warp Speed briefing Tuesday, where he said the administration would “release the entire supply for ordering by the states, rather than keeping the second doses in reserve “.
And it adds another level of confusion for state officials, who rushed to distribute the vaccines after being tasked to do so by the federal government.
However, vaccine maker Pfizer said it had the doses ready for administration. What was not immediately clear was how long it would take for those doses to reach the states.
Michael Pratt, a spokesperson for Operation Warp Speed, also denied the idea that the supply was “exhausted” in a statement to CNN.
“This week, nearly 13 million total doses were delivered to states on order, millions more than other weeks because the second dose supply is fully made available on order,” Pratt said. “States have yet to fully order against their order caps. As reported this week, we have now moved to the phase where the full amount released to OWS is made available on order, first to cover second doses, then to deliver additional first doses. . ”
Furious officials
The news has blinded many officials responsible for creating plans to administer vaccines at national and local levels.
Oregon Health Director Patrick Allen in a letter to Azar recounting a call with Brown and Operation Warp Speed CEO Gen. Gustave Perna on Thursday demanded that the HHS chief reconciles his statement on “the release of the whole offering” with this revelation.
“During this call, he informed us that there was no reserve of doses and that we were already receiving the full vaccine allocation,” Allen wrote. “If this is true, this is extremely worrying and puts our plans to expand eligibility at serious risk. These plans were drawn up on the basis of your statement regarding the ‘full release of supply’ that you have in reserve. If this information is correct, we will not be able to start immunizing our vulnerable seniors on January 23, as planned. “
In an interview with CNN, Allen described the call as an “awkward discussion” in which Perna confirmed that there was no physical stockpile of vaccine, but left the impression that States had simply misunderstood the administration plans.
“I don’t think I misunderstood,” Allen said. Allen has confirmed that Oregon will have to delay its plan to start vaccinating seniors on Jan.23, as no increase in vaccines is coming.
“It’s so disappointing,” he added. “People are in desperate need of the vaccine, and we’ve worked so hard to be able to expand the number of eligible people, and not being able to do that is just overwhelming right now.
Colorado Democratic Governor Jared Polis accused the administration of lying to state officials.
Vaccine maker Pfizer says it has second doses of coronavirus vaccine ready to ship as needed.
“Operation Warp Speed (OWS) asked us to start shipping second doses only recently. Therefore, we have all second doses from previous shipments to the United States on hand. We are working around the clock. to produce millions more every day, ”Pfizer said in a statement to CNN.
“We have and continue to work closely with OWS on our production, release and shipping schedules – to ensure Americans receive their first and second doses of vaccine on time.” We have provided OWS with a specific timeline and do not anticipate any issues. keep the commitments we have made, ”the company added.
CNN has contacted vaccine maker Moderna, as well as distribution partner Moderna McKesson, and has not received a response.
The revelation that second doses were not being kept strictly in reserve was first reported by The Post, which also reported that the Trump administration had changed its strategy to start mining second doses at the end of Last year.
“We hear that there is no vaccine stock for the second dose but that it was more of a ‘paper exercise’,” said Dr Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the ‘Association of State and Territory Health Officials. “The inventory appears to be entirely on paper; they were tracking expected needs but not actually holding the product.”
The bottom line, Plescia said, is that the vaccine will remain scarce for at least a few more weeks.
“I think the original post got lost in a lot of excessive promises,” Plescia said. “Until there is a more solid supply, we need to be clear with the public that the opportunity to get the vaccine is limited.”
The realization that there is no massive slice of vaccines ahead stuns even those in regular contact with administration health officials.
Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, said her organization had not been made aware of the lack of vaccine supply and had not read about it in the news.
“It was a total surprise,” Freeman told CNN on Friday, adding, “Hearing that this had been done for several weeks was actually shocking to us.”
“I don’t know if the right hand knows what the left hand is doing here,” she said, adding that there is a risk that people will not be vaccinated properly if the federal government does not provide reliable figures for its vaccine supply.
Deployment slower than promised
The news ends a disappointing vaccine rollout under the Trump administration.
While vaccines have been developed in record time, the process of bringing Americans into the hands of Americans has progressed much slower than officials had promised. In large part, this is because the Trump administration has left it up to each state to understand the Herculean task of vaccinating its people. But the administration’s constantly fluctuating estimates of how much vaccine is available has also made it difficult for states to develop vaccination plans, state officials said.
“Sec Azar’s announcement on Tuesday that HHS would release the entire supply for state order, rather than keeping the 2nd doses in reserve, led us to believe that additional doses were available and would be forthcoming.” Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, told CNN, noting that allocations to states have not actually increased.
“State and local authorities are eager to receive more doses to expand immunization to older Americans while continuing to immunize essential health care and frontline workers,” Hannan added. “It is so critical that states get accurate estimates and allocations in advance so they can plan for vaccine distribution and administration.”
This story has been updated with comments from Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and a statement from Pfizer.
CNN’s Jacqueline Howard, Lauren Mascarenhas, Amanda Sealy, Nadia Kounang and John Bonifield contributed to this report.
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