Covid vaccine update: US will not meet 20 million dose target by end of year

Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui / Bloomberg

The US vaccinates an average of only 200,000 people a day against Covid-19 and many states have used only a small percentage of the shipments sent to them this month.

Data collected from states and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows that although Operation Warp Speed ​​distributed millions of doses, some states have been slow to bring them into people’s arms. According to a Bloomberg News analysis, the nation will almost certainly not reach the Trump administration’s goal of 20 million vaccinations by the end of the year.

The latest CDC issue, starting Monday, showed that despite the distribution of 11.45 million doses from Moderna Inc., and from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, only 2.13 million people were shot. This represents about 20% of early allocations. Oregon used only 15.3% of its supply, Ohio 14.3% and Maryland 10.9%.

Officials blame a delicate vaccine with complex storage requirements, uncertainty about dose delivery and pressure on local health agencies that are already facing historic challenges.

“We would like to have better absorption,” said Steve Kelso, a spokesman for the Kent County Department of Health in Michigan, where the state used 18.5 percent of its doses. “We could stick more needles in our arms.”

How much of their allowances do states use?

The analysis shows variations in the speed at which vaccine states operate

Source: state dashboards and public commentary, US government data

More than 330,000 Americans have died as a result of the pandemic, and tens of thousands more are expected to give up in the coming months, making the launch of the vaccine all the more critical. But Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser on Operation Warp Speed, said last week that the target of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of the year was unlikely to be reached.

In recent weeks, countries around the world have launched vaccination campaigns in a global race to end the pandemic. Some far outnumber the United States: Israel, whose size and population is similar to that of New Jersey, gave an average of 60,000 people a day in the first week. If the US moved at the same rate, it would make 2.2 million vaccinations a day – 10 times the current rate.

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday that the figures reported did not reflect the latest situation.

“We are closely monitoring the data reported by the jurisdictions regarding the administration of the vaccine and we are encouraged by the work they have done so far on vacation,” said Michael Pratt. “A gap is expected between gunfire and reported data.”

President Donald Trump, on Tuesday evening, reiterated in a tweet that “it is up to the states to distribute the vaccines”.

But President-elect Joe Biden said in a previous speech that “the effort to distribute the vaccine is not progressing as it should” and that he “will move heaven and earth to get us in the right direction.”

Biden said his administration will take 100 million photos in its first 100 days if Congress provides funding. “If it continues to move as it is now, it will take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people,” he said.

Michigan’s Muddle

Bloomberg News analyzed the first three allocations to states, including two weeks of Pfizer photos and one of Moderna. In some cases, the totals allocated are higher than what states say they have received. The number of doses shipped is in line with what the CDC says was distributed, allowing consistent comparisons from state to state.

Michigan used less than 1 in 5 of the 455,900 doses allocated through December 21, according to Bloomberg analysis.

“The lack of certainty about vaccine allocations, the timing of the arrival of allocations, and the scheduling process for thousands of vaccination employees has made this a challenge,” said John Karasinski, a spokesman for Michigan Health & Hospital.

Kent County, which includes Grand Rapids, has formed a group of health departments, hospitals and pharmacies to vaccinate about 2,200 people in the first phase, targeting health workers. So far, only about 575 vaccinations have been made.

Kelso, the spokesman, said that some employees do not want to deprive a real front-line worker of a vaccine. Holidays can slow things down. And some people are still safety-wise, even some of the health department staff.

“A lot of people don’t want to be the first child in the block,” Kelso said.

Other groups are more successful. Sparrow Health System vaccinated about a quarter of its staff, pharmacy director Todd Belding said in an interview. He said Michigan’s central hospital system administers about 2,000 doses a week.

The launch in stages is slower than if the photos were available to everyone who came, such as the flu vaccine. A certain delay depends on the design: hospitals do not want to vaccinate entire departments at once, if the side effects force workers to leave. But Sparrow is also coordinating with officials to target populations such as prison medical staff and independent health practitioners. Identifying and reaching such groups takes time, a challenge that will persist when vaccines are taken over by food workers and teachers.

“This prioritization has added a kind of complexity,” Belding said.

Other states are moving more slowly. As of December 28, Maryland had delivered only 10.9% of the 191,075 doses in the first three weekly allowances, according to Bloomberg analysis.

In Montgomery County, the head of Public Health, Travis Gayles, said he was preparing for obstacles such as staff shortages. Years of budget cuts have outpaced municipalities’ ability to build effective responses from scratch – at one point, Montgomery said cases of viruses were faxed – and those cuts can also hinder the distribution of the vaccine.

“With Covid right now, it certainly shows a strong light on the impact of those budget decisions,” Gayles said.

In New York, officials are looking at vaccination sites and putting “slight pressure to take over,” said Larry Schwartz, a member of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Covid-19 working group. Part of the state’s allocation goes to pharmacies that the federal government inoculates residents and nursing home staff, and it may have taken them a while to prepare, Schwartz said.

“Like anything completely new, there is always a period of growth,” he said.

Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, said the Trump administration’s dependence on states has blocked the response. The Warp Speed ​​program has managed admirably to help develop and distribute a vaccine, he said, “but at that moment it hits an obstacle.”

“Let’s set up field hospitals and tents everywhere and get the National Guard to do this,” Jha said in a telephone interview. “The last pity made very little investment. I think this is going to be a huge problem. ”

Private institutions are struggling, even those that behave relatively well. In Virginia, which generally used about 15 percent of its early allocation, Sentara Healthcare gave about 60 percent of its doses, said Jordan Asher, chief executive of the 12-hospital system. The internal goal was to distribute this in three weeks, and Asher said Sentara was slightly ahead of schedule.