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The leading infectious disease specialist in the United States, Anthony Fauci, on Thursday called on the federal government to deploy more resources to immunize Americans after the country missed its goal of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of the year ‘year.
“We would have loved to see it run smoothly and have 20 million doses in people today, by the end of 2020, which was the projection,” Fauci said.
“Obviously that didn’t happen, and it’s disappointing,” he told NBC in an interview.
The US inability to meet its year-end vaccine distribution target comes as concerns grow over the newly identified strain of Covid-19 circulating in the UK, which is believed to have reached the US this week, with cases in Colorado and California.
More than 14 million doses of the vaccine have been distributed in the United States, but only 2.1 million people have been vaccinated, leaders of the federal immunization program, Operation Warp Speed, said at a press conference on Wednesday. .
Operation Warp Speed chief advisor Moncef Slaoui said: “We know it should be better and we are working hard to improve it.”
The 2.1 million number is likely an underestimate due to reporting delays. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday 2.6 million people had received their first dose.
Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), said that to speed up vaccine distribution, the federal government needs to provide more resources to local governments responsible for administering the vaccine.
“Namely, states, cities, counties, places where the vaccine actually goes into the arms of individuals,” Fauci said. “We need to support local groups, states and cities to help them accomplish this task.”
The United States has recorded 19.7 million cases of Covid-19 and more than 342,400 people have died from the infection, according to Johns Hopkins University.
December was the nation’s deadliest month since the pandemic began in early 2020, and health officials have warned January could be worse.
Fauci said it was “inevitable” that the new variant, called B.1.1.7, would arrive in the United States due to the high level of infections in the country.
He said that while it is of concern that the new variant is proving to be more effective at spreading from person to person, it has not shown signs of being more harmful and it has not shown an ability to escape. protection of vaccines used. “The good news is, it doesn’t seem to be more virulent, making people sicker and leading to more deaths,” Fauci said.
The new variant was identified in a Colorado man in his 20s working as a member of the National Guard supporting a nursing home. He had no travel history, according to the state health department.
Although the new variant was only found in the United States this week, the CDC said it is likely already circulating in the country. The agency said it had not identified the variant in its sequencing efforts, but that its labs only have access to a portion of the country’s Covid-19 cases and may not have it. not yet detected.
The United States has recorded more cases and deaths of coronavirus than any other country. President-elect Joe Biden criticized the Trump administration’s vaccine distribution efforts on Tuesday.
“A few weeks ago, the Trump administration suggested that 20 million Americans could be vaccinated by the end of December,” Biden said. “There are only a few days left in December, we have only vaccinated a few million so far.”
Fauci said he hopes vaccine distribution will increase in the first weeks of January.
“Hopefully, as we look forward to 2021, as we move into the year, with a combination of vaccines and proper adherence to public health measures, we can end and crush this situation.” , in the same way that we have done with other epidemics like polio and measles and other important infectious diseases, ”said Fauci. “So that’s the goal and I hope we accomplish it.”
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