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Public health experts blamed the COVID-19 vaccine shortages in the United States on Thursday in part on the Trump administration’s efforts to get states to dramatically expand their vaccination campaigns to reach the 54 million people aged 18 and over. 65 years and over.
The surge that began over a week ago has not been accompanied by sufficient doses to meet demand, state and local authorities say, leading to frustration and confusion and limited ability of states to attack the epidemic that has killed more than 400,000 Americans.
In recent days, authorities in California, Ohio, West Virginia, Florida and Hawaii have warned their supplies are running out. New York City has started canceling or postponing shootings or stopping making new appointments due to shortages, which President Joe Biden has vowed to address.
The vaccine rollout so far has been “a big disappointment,” said Dr Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute.
The problems started with the Trump administration’s “fatal mistake” of not ordering enough vaccines, which was later picked up by other countries, Topol said. Then, opening the line up to the seniors made people disappointed because there wasn’t enough vaccine, he said. The Trump administration also left crucial planning to states and failed to provide the necessary funding.
“It doesn’t happen through fairy dust,” Topol said. “You have to invest funds in it.”
Last week, before Biden took over the presidency, the US Department of Health and Human Services suggested the frustration was the result of unrealistic expectations by states about the amount of vaccines on their way.
But some public health experts said states were not receiving reliable information on vaccine shipments and the quantities sent to them were unpredictable. This, in turn, made it difficult for them to plan how to immunize people.
“It’s kind of having to build it up as you go,” said Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco. “It’s an initial supply issue, and unless we know how many vaccines are going through the pipe, it’s hard to size these products right, staff them, get people in, get them in, get vaccinated and make them go away.
Secretaries of State for Health have asked the Biden administration for earlier and more reliable forecasts of vaccine deliveries, Washington State Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah said.
Dr Marcus Plescia of the Association of State and Territory Health Officials was also among those who said opening vaccinations to older people was made too early, before the offer could catch up with its delay.
“We needed consistent federal leadership on this early on in the launch,” Plescia said. “That hasn’t happened, and now that we’re not prioritizing groups, there is going to be some delay for supply to catch up with demand.”
The supply will resume over the next few weeks, he said. Shipments are sent to the states every week, and the government and drug makers have given assurances that large quantities are underway.
The deployment proceeded at a disappointing pace. The U.S. government has delivered nearly 38 million doses of the vaccine to states, and about 17.5 million of these have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
About 2.4 million people have received the two necessary doses, according to the CDC tally – well below the hundreds of millions who will need to be vaccinated to beat the epidemic.
Biden, in one of his early work, on Thursday signed 10 executive orders to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, including one expanding the use of the Defense Production Act to expand vaccine production. The 1950 Korean War law allows the government to direct the manufacture of essential goods.
He also mandated masks for travel, including at airports and on planes, ships, trains, buses and public transport, and ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency to establish centers and the CDC to make vaccines available at pharmacies starting next month.
Biden has vowed to distribute 100 million hits in his first 100 days.
“We will move heaven and earth to get more people vaccinated for free,” he said.
In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo pleaded for more doses. Appointments until Sunday for the first dose of the vaccine at 15 community vaccination centers set up by the city’s health service have been postponed until next week.
Vaccinations in New York have not stopped, but demand for vaccines now far exceeds the number of available doses, the mayor said.
“It’s really sad that we have so many people who want the vaccine and so much ability to deliver the vaccine, what’s going on?” said de Blasio. “Due to lack of availability, we actually have to cancel the appointments.”
Rosa Schneider jumped at the chance to make an appointment for the vaccination when she learned that educators like her were eligible in New York. A high school English teacher who lives in New York but works in New Jersey, she said one day before getting her shot at a city hospital on Wednesday, she got a call saying the offer had run out and that the appointment was exhausted. has been cancelled.
“I was worried and upset,” said Schneider, 32, but she tries to make another appointment every day. She hopes uptime will improve in the coming weeks.
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Associated Press editor Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report from New York.
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