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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) blamed Walgreens and the federal government for the slow deployment of the vaccine in Garden State during an interview Wednesday night on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith”.
“The main reason is the federal program with CVS and Walgreens,” Murphy said. “They’ve basically racked up those doses, they plan long term nursing home visits, extended life, and they hit under their weight, especially Walgreens, and that’s where most of the doses are that are have not yet been used. “
Murphy suggested hosting Shepard Smith as Walgreens “put more bodies on the case” in order to resolve the deployment issue.
On Tuesday, Murphy said New Jersey was indeed equipped to distribute the vaccine, but all suppliers were missing “these are the doses of the vaccine.” New Jersey has a population of around 8.882 million people and has distributed 898,550 vaccines, while administering only 432,220, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Murphy pointed to the state-controlled Covid vaccine doses and said they get into people’s arms more effectively.
“You can’t find a lot of doses in hospitals or other distribution points that we control directly that are not being used,” Murphy said. “We are getting gunfire in all areas we can control.”
Smith pushed back Murphy and stressed that “people are losers” when it comes to the slow rollout of the vaccine. More than 123,000 Americans are currently hospitalized and an average of 3,000 people die each day, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins data. The pandemic has killed more than 400,000 people since the start of the pandemic early last year. Murphy singled out the federal government.
“There is no doubt that we have a huge imbalance between supply and demand, which is starting, with all due respect, with the federal government, at least until today, having dropped the balloon – more promising and under-delivering, ”Murphy said. “So if Walgreens beats 1,000, if CVS beats 1,000 and we continue as a state to do what we’re doing, which is getting vaccines into people’s arms, we’ve always been abandoned by the federal government. “
Murphy has asked for up to $ 20 billion in federal aid to help close the Covid deficits. President Joe Biden said on Friday he would use the Defense Production Act to increase vaccine supply in his first month in office.
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