President Biden is under pressure to further target his administration’s vaccine distribution targets, with experts noting that his early effort to deliver 100 million photos in 100 days does not differ dramatically from the current pace.
The new administration has achieved its vaccination goal as “ambitious” and “bold”. But a vocal group of experts says Biden’s goal is actually much smaller than what is needed to tame the pandemic, especially with more contagious growing variants.
“100 million photos means 50 million people,” said Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, who said the two vaccines currently available require two doses. “It’s absolutely inappropriate.”
A more contagious variant found for the first time in the UK could be the dominant strain in the US by March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned, sending cases with even higher growth and putting more stress on hospitals. This makes vaccinations faster before they are even more pressing.
“This is really an urgency that people don’t understand,” Topol said.
Biden officials have stressed that they will not stop vaccinations if they reach the target within 100 days, so the target may be exceeded. However, experts say the goal still matters, and the predominant focus should be on 24/7 vaccines.
In part, the new administration is trying to set expectations that the pandemic will not return immediately and is trying to describe the Trump administration as leaving little to work on the vaccination effort.
“What we inherit is much worse than we could have imagined” Jeff Zients
Jeff ZientsBiden is pressured to provide more photos COVID-19 Jaws: We don’t “start from scratch” when distributing the vaccine These are the executive orders Biden signed in the first three days, Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator said in a call with reporters on Wednesday.
Anthony Fauci
Anthony FauciOvernight Health – Fauci: Lack of Facts “Probably” Costed Life in Coronavirus | CDC Amends COVID-19 Vaccine Guide to Allow Rare Mixing of Photos Pfizer, Modern | Senate chaos threatens to slow down Biden Fauci’s agenda enraged by family threats Poll: Plural voters say coronavirus vaccine will be slower than expected, the government’s top infectious disease expert, told reporters that the new administration “amplifies” what the Trump administration has done through a more active federal role, but “we certainly don’t start from scratch.”
The Trump administration has drawn criticism from experts for putting too much responsibility on states for the “last mile” of getting gunfire without enough federal support and for not providing clear enough information about how much vaccine each would receive. state and when.
However, despite problems with the initial launch, the pace of vaccinations in the US has already risen to close to Biden’s goal of 1 million photos a day just before his administration takes over. The United States took an average of 911,000 photos a day on January 19, according to data compiled by Our World in Data, just shy of the brand Biden wanted.
“Don’t let the media and Democratic politicians turn this around,” Rep. Steve Scalise
Stephen (Steve) Joseph Scalise The inauguration of Biden marked by the conflict of hope and fear Scalise bringing Donna Brazile as a guest at the parliamentary deposition of Biden, a member of the GOP Parliament: Trump “endangered our whole lives” MORE (La.), The Republican Whip of the House, posted on Twitter Thursday. “Biden’s vaccination plan is Trump’s vaccination plan. The United States was already on track for 100 million doses in 100 days. “
Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said the United States may need about 250 million people to be vaccinated to get herd immunity when enough people are immune so the virus can spread. to drop dramatically.
“For a two-dose vaccine, that’s 500 million doses, so when you talk about taking a million doses a day, we’re probably better off with about 3 million doses a day if we can get there,” he said. he. “One million doses a day is not enough to get there quickly.”
Biden became defensive on Thursday when asked by a reporter if 100 million photos are enough in 100 days, given that the US is already close in pace to achieve this goal.
“When I announced it, you all said it wasn’t possible,” Biden said. “Come on. Give me a break, man. It’s a good start, 100 million.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
Jen PsakiBiden under pressure to take more photos COVID-19 Biden and Trudeau agree to meet next month Democrats seek answers on impact of Russian cyber attack on Justice Department, Courts MORE On Friday he said there was always room to exceed the target, but noted a number of winds, including hesitation in the vaccine and supply problems.
“If we go beyond that, it’s great,” she said. “We will continue to work after day 100.”
The Biden administration is taking a number of steps to increase federal support for the vaccination effort, regardless of the goal set. Biden signed an order to make fuller use of the Defense Production Act to require companies to increase vaccine production.
One area of focus is to increase the supply of special syringes that can extract an additional dose of vaccine that is in some vials, thus increasing the number of doses available.
The administration also plans to use the Federal Emergency Management Agency to set up federally administered vaccination sites, with the goal of 100 sites in the first month.
There are also questions about how many doses of vaccine will be available. Pfizer and Moderna have each pledged to have 100 million doses for the US by the end of March – twice as much as needed to meet Biden’s goal – although production problems may reduce those numbers.
Officials hope a third vaccine from Johnson & Johnson could be released in the coming weeks, which would provide additional supplies.
But Biden officials said they were still trying to figure out the supply situation and did not have accurate projections from producers.
The new administration is also trying to improve communication with state leaders, who complained that the Trump team did not give them information about their allocations well in advance to plan correctly.
The clock is ticking, said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, given the spread of more contagious variants.
“They emphasize the real need to continue accelerating the launch as much as possible,” he said. “Because to some extent it’s a race between a more contagious virus and our ability to protect people.”