[ad_1]
State officials had hoped on Friday that they could meet the new May 1 target announced by Biden after giving governors a few hours’ notice Thursday night. But they are also wary of excessive promises, acknowledging that a number of factors could trigger the vaccination effort. It is a stark truth that officials will need to send a message carefully to avoid further frustrating a public tired by the crisis and eager to put the pandemic behind them.
“It’s a good thing to aspire to, but I just think we probably need to keep an eye out and see how we’re doing when we get to April,” said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial. Health. Officials said of Biden’s goal.
Anticipating a surge in doses, some states were already expecting to open once rare injections to all adults in the coming weeks. After Alaska became the first to do so on Tuesday, the governors of Utah and Michigan announced steps in that direction this week. Ohio and Connecticut are also on track to meet Biden’s target, spokespersons for those governors said.
White House officials have repeatedly presented themselves as willing partners to help states vaccinate their residents, in contrast to the Trump administration, which has let states run much of the lift. Biden is pledging new federal resources to support the effort, freshly signed to a $ 1.9 trillion Covid relief plan passed just with Democratic votes. This includes the significant expansion in the number of mass vaccination sites, pharmacies and community health centers providing vaccines and sending more medical personnel across the country. The administration also promises to set up a new website and nationwide call center by May 1 to help Americans schedule dates, while promising new tech help to states. to improve their own registration systems.
“We’ve spent a lot of time working on the supply, the number of places, the number of vaccinators, and we think May 1 is the right deadline,” White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff said. Zients, during a press briefing on Friday.
Despite the new federal help, state officials are still working on logistical issues that may not be fully resolved within the next seven weeks.
In Oklahoma, where the state has already opened up eligibility to the vast majority of adults, officials say they are trying to create more vaccination sites statewide to meet increased supply.
“It doesn’t do us much good to have millions of doses or hundreds of thousands of doses and only have one tight place that someone can access it,” said Keith Reed, Deputy Commissioner to Oklahoma Health.
Some state officials have also said they feared going too fast to expand eligibility when many high-risk people still haven’t had the opportunity to make appointments. Many states that sought to prioritize eligibility based on risk have already thrown away these manuals as the vaccination effort stalled.
“We’re also starting to be able to lose that control over this hierarchy of vulnerable patients, so we want to make sure we’re really focused on [that]Said Clay Marsh, the coronavirus czar of the state of West Virginia. His state could open up eligibility widely within the next month, he said.
Since the country’s slow start to the vaccination campaign, the pace has accelerated to more than 2 million doses per day. On Friday, the United States passed the milestone of 100 million doses administered since the start of the vaccination campaign almost three months ago. A quarter of the adult population has received at least their first vaccine, including 61% of people aged 65 and over, a group particularly susceptible to the virus.
An expected increase in vaccine production in the coming weeks should mean states are inundated with new doses. But some state officials say they are reluctant to plan too far without having a concrete idea of their expected remits. The Biden administration has given states at least three weeks’ notice of planned shipments, but has promised to provide a larger window to help them plan.
In Oregon, state officials originally planned to open vaccine eligibility to anyone over the age of 45 on June 1 and to the general population by July 1. But the state will accelerate that timeline “if the doses increase,” a senior official said.
“We’ll know a lot more when we have better visibility of our vaccine supply,” said Patrick Allen, director of the Oregon Health Authority.
The state plans to take over the Biden administration’s offer of technical assistance to expand its registration system, Allen said. The state recently overhauled its glitch dating system after Portland-area residents attempted to schedule just 3,400 dates at the Oregon Convention Center. It now requires residents to pre-register, with the state choosing names through a lottery – a system that Allen says is “scalable.”
Other health officials have said the May 1 target will help states set their priorities.
“It’s good to know that this is the vision – that it is something that is presented in advance, so that we can make sure that our systems and strategies are up to the task by the next. May 1 ”, declared Adriane Casalotti, head of government. business for the National Association of County and City Health Officials.
“There is a lot to do in our systems and in the collaboration between public health and healthcare to be ready for this date,” added Casalotti.
Brianna Ehley contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link