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WASHINGTON – Ahead of an increase in available vaccines next month, the Biden administration has taken control of an increasing number of doses, bypassing state programs in a bid to vaccinate black, Latin American and low-income communities returned.
But after less than five weeks of revamping the system inherited from the Trump administration, Biden’s plan to use federally-run pharmacies and mass vaccination sites could be tested by a new wave of doses.
“There is a lot of untapped capacity,” said Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at New York University, who advised the Biden transition. “I think there is huge potential for expansion through retail pharmacies. This has been much more targeted so far, but once the offer opens up they will target populations most at risk. , but also will increase more widely. “
President Joe Biden celebrated the 50 millionth vaccine on Thursday with an event at the White House that included a vaccine delivery designed for television to four people – a teacher, a grocery store manager, a paramedic and a firefighter.
“What I’m going to say to the American people is this, if – if – the FDA approves the use of this new vaccine, we have a plan to deploy it as quickly as Johnson & Johnson can,” Biden said. “We will use any means imaginable to expand vaccine manufacturing and we will make even faster progress on all vaccines in March.”
Pfizer and Moderna have ramped up production and Johnson & Johnson is on track to secure emergency use clearance from the FDA for their single-dose vaccine this weekend – after which the drugmaker announced that it would send 20 million doses to the American market in a few weeks. .
If manufacturers hit their forecast, the United States will have enough doses to immunize 4 million people per day by the end of March, up from the current rate of around 1.5 million vaccines per day.
The upcoming test for the Biden administration is whether it can successfully ensure that these doses are reaching from manufacturers into people’s arms at an increased rate and achieving its goal of ensuring that the communities most affected are not left behind. account.
The United States will also want to avoid problems like those emerging in other countries, such as Germany, which on Wednesday admitted to having 1 million doses in stock because people are reluctant to get vaccinated.
Unlike the Trump administration, which assigned vaccine doses to states based on the size of their populations and left it up to local authorities to decide how to distribute the vaccines, the new administration channeled more doses to the centers. health centers, mass vaccination sites run by the federal government. and retail pharmacies specifically targeting minority and low-income communities, administration officials said.
So far, only 9% of those who have received the vaccine have been Hispanic and 6% have been black, according to CDC data. Hispanics make up 19% of the total American population and blacks 13%.
Even among healthcare workers, the first group to get vaccinated, whites were disproportionately more vaccinated than blacks and Hispanics, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
In an attempt to reverse this trend, the federal government this month began shipping vaccine doses directly to retail pharmacies, with initial locations selected for their ability to reach “socially vulnerable communities,” said Jeffrey Zients. , the administration’s Covid-19 coordinator. Last week, 2 million doses went straight to pharmacies and 13.5 million in the United States.
Walgreens said it would start receiving a weekly allowance of around 500,000 doses of vaccine per week, about half of which would go to stores in what the federal government has identified as “medically underserved areas” and areas with vulnerable social populations, said a spokesperson for Walgreens.
After using pharmacies to target low-income areas, delivery by retailers is expected to expand nationwide once new doses become available. The Albertsons grocery store, for example, said it had the capacity to administer 150,000 doses per day and handle about 90 percent more supply than it received. CVS said its 10,000 stores will have the capacity to give 5 to 6 million doses per week, but they are only receiving 500,000 doses per week now.
Part of the challenge with rolling out more doses will be helping people figure out which pharmacy has doses and how people can get appointments. The CDC works in partnership with other health providers on Vaccinefinder.org, a website where people can enter their zip code and see where injections are available.
The website was set up by the Boston Children’s Hospital to help families find flu shots, but has been converted to a Covid-19 vaccination site that pulls data directly from pharmacies. It currently offers information in only four states.
Administration officials said this month that they would ship 1 million doses of the vaccine directly to 250 federally funded community health centers, which serve hard-to-reach groups such as the homeless, migrant workers and residents of social housing.
The administration has also set up vaccination centers in majority minority neighborhoods in Oakland, California and Los Angeles, which each administer more than 4,000 vaccines per day directly from the federal vaccine supply. He plans to open four more federal vaccination sites over the next two weeks in Florida – near Miami, Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville – with large populations of black and Latino residents.
“The selection of all of these sites is based on a CDC, FEMA framework that was developed to target vaccinations to the most vulnerable,” said Andy Slavitt, White House senior advisor on pandemic response, announcing the locations. “The goal is to launch immunization sites that use processes and are located in places that promote equity.
And he acknowledged that in some cases people outside the communities had scheduled dates, Slavitt said.
“People outside of these communities – outside of hard-hit communities – come in, make appointments and often take some of these doses, which we shouldn’t be surprised at – this is happening in a shortage,” Slavitt said. at a press conference. briefing last week. “But we have to act accordingly because we are deliberately setting up the two sites which are conveniently located in these communities.”
At a vaccination site opened this week at the Dallas’ Fair Park, staffed with military and federal officials and targeting minority neighborhoods, only 18,000 residents of eligible zip codes had registered for the vaccine on Monday – 3,000 fewer than the total number of FEMA. can inoculate in a week, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Slavitt said the federal government is working on ways to improve the appointment booking system and other issues that can become barriers for people who live in these communities, such as transportation and limited hours for them. Appointment.
States have also complained about a lack of coordination as the federal government plays a larger role, according to a bipartisan group of governors who sent a letter to the administration this month.
Governors said that due to a lack of communication, some pharmacies have received doses from the state and the federal government.
“If the federal government independently distributes states to these same entities without state coordination and consultation, redundancy and inefficiency could very well follow,” the letter said.
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