[ad_1]
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, speaks with Alex Azar, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), not pictured, before receiving the Moderna Inc. Covid-19 vaccine during of an event at the NIH Clinical Auditorium Center Masur in Bethesda, Maryland, USA on Tuesday, December 22, 2020. The National Institutes of Health is hosting a live immunization event to kick off the organization’s efforts for its employees at premiere pandemic line. Photographer: Patrick Semansky / Associated Press / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The slower-than-expected rollout of the Covid vaccine in the United States has been “disappointing,” Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said Thursday.
Officials from Operation Warp Speed, President Donald Trump’s vaccination program, had previously said the country would vaccinate 20 million people with the first two-dose Covid-19 vaccine in December. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that of more than 12.4 million doses distributed, just under 2.8 million were actually administered.
“We would have liked to see it go smoothly and have 20 million doses in people today, by the end of (year) 2020, which was the projection. Obviously, that didn’t happen. is not produced and it is disappointing, ”Fauci said. on NBC’s “Today” show. “Hopefully, as you move into the first two weeks of January, the ramp-up will get us to where we want to be.”
States and counties need more resources to speed up the pace of vaccination, Fauci said. Trump, in recent days, has sought to defend his administration’s vaccine rollout by claiming that it is the responsibility of states to administer the vaccines once they have been delivered by Operation Warp Speed.
Michael Pratt, a spokesperson for the program, said earlier this week that CDC data is likely turned off due to delays in reporting.
“Operation Warp Speed remains on track to have around 40 million doses of vaccine and allocate 20 million doses for the first vaccinations by the end of December 2020, with the distribution of the 20 million first doses covering the first week of January as states place orders for them, ”he said in a statement.
Dr Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, said Thursday on CNN that the federal government has invested heavily in vaccine development, but has failed to match that effort in terms of distribution and administration.
“The urgency that we put into making a vaccine and the money that we put into making a vaccine, we spent $ 24 billion to basically do a Manhattan Project-like response … This is the part of the vaccine, ”he said. “Now comes the part of the vaccination, which is just as difficult and will also require this Manhattan Project-type response.”
“The federal government needs to step up its response to vaccination in the same way it has stepped up the response to vaccine manufacturing,” said Offit, who is also a voting member of the Vaccines and Related Biologics Advisory Board. the Food and Drug Administration. Committee.
Dr Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health, on Thursday called for “mass vaccination” events. He said the government should consider turning places such as election polls, football stadiums and race tracks into temporary vaccination clinics.
“We need to vaccinate around two million people per day… instead of 150,000 people per day. And I just don’t see the urgency, ”he said. told CNN. “We have to go into mass vaccination mode, and we have to do it now.”
[ad_2]
Source link