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Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Wednesday urged states not to “ micromanage ” their assigned coronavirus vaccine doses, saying it was better to bring out the vaccines as quickly as possible even if they have not been able to immunize all of their health workers.
“There is no reason that states need to complete, say immunize all health care providers, before opening vaccinations to older Americans or other particularly vulnerable populations,” he said. Azar told reporters during a press briefing.
“If they use all the vaccine that’s allocated, ordered, distributed, shipped and get it to health care providers, every piece of it is great,” he added. “But if for some reason their distribution is difficult and they have vaccine freezers, then you should definitely open it up to people 70 and over.”
U.S. officials are trying to speed up the pace of vaccinations after a slower-than-expected initial rollout. The coronavirus pandemic in the United States continues to accelerate, with the country recording at least 219,200 new cases of Covid-19 and at least 2,670 virus-related deaths each day, based on a seven-day average calculated by CNBC using data from Johns Hopkins University.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has provided states with a plan that recommends prioritizing health workers and nursing homes first, but states can distribute the vaccine as they see fit.
Azar said Wednesday that providing states with some “flexibility” around who gets the first few doses “is the best way to get more hits in the guns” faster. “Faster administration could save lives now, which means we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” he said. “Hope is here in the form of vaccines.”
More than 4.8 million people in the United States received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday at 9 a.m. ET, according to the CDC. The number falls far short of the federal government’s goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans by the end of 2020 and 50 million Americans by the end of this month.
US officials have acknowledged that vaccine distribution has been slower than expected. Dr Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease, told STAT News on Tuesday that she expects vaccine deployment to accelerate “quite massively” in the weeks to come. come.
“These are the first steps of a really complicated task, but a task for which we are ready,” she told STAT.
Global health experts have said that delivering vaccines to some 331 million Americans in just a few months could prove to be much more complicated and chaotic than originally thought. In addition to making enough doses, states and territories also need enough needles, syringes, and bottles to complete vaccinations.
The logistics of obtaining the vaccine and its administration are complex and require special training. Pfizer’s vaccine, for example, requires a storage temperature of minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines cannot be refrozen and must be administered at room temperature and within a few hours or deterioration.
Read more: The Covid Vaccine’s Long Journey: How Doses Get From the Manufacturing Plant to Your Arm
Azar also said the holidays likely played a role in the slow rollout of vaccines, saying healthcare providers knew it would be difficult to get millions lined up for vaccinations until December.
Nearly 20 million doses of the vaccine have been delivered to more than 13,000 sites across the country, General Gustave Perna, who oversees the logistics of President Donald Trump’s vaccination program, Operation Warp Speed, said at the same briefing.
The vaccine distribution is going “very well,” he said, adding that officials are still working to improve the process. “Our goal is to keep the drum beat steady so that states have a cadence of planning allocations and then distributing the right things to the right places as directed.”
“We always re-evaluate the numbers, making sure the distribution is in the right places [and] ensure that enforcement takes place so that other decisions can be made regarding allocations, ”he added.
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