Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that Americans could wear masks in 2022 because he said the harsh winter storms experienced across the country this week delayed the distribution of six million doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
The White House chief medical officer told NBC on Sunday: “The number was 6 million delayed doses.”
But the nation’s top infectious disease expert said on Sunday it was only a “temporary retrograde”, adding: “We can play pretty good recoveries. We’ve taken out two million, and we project that by the middle of the week we’ll be behind. ”
Bad weather in the south and northeast earlier this week growled vaccine deliveries and forced the cancellation of countless photos across the country. The CDC admitted “widespread delays in deliveries and deliveries of Covid-19 vaccine.”
In much of the country, including Texas, Georgia and Alabama, the snowy and slippery weather has either led to the direct closure of vaccination sites or sustained the necessary transport, with delays expected to continue for days.
President Joe Biden is trying to speed up the vaccination campaign for most American adults as local governments call for more doses to prevent the highly contagious disease that has claimed nearly 500,000 lives in the United States.
Asked if Americans should expect to wear masks again next year, Fauci told CNN, “I think it might be so,” adding that it depended on the level of the virus in communities and potential variants of the virus.
“Obviously, I think we will have a significant degree of normalcy beyond the terrible burden we have all gone through in the last year,” Fauci said.
He told Fox News that the United States will have 600 million doses of coronavirus vaccine by July. “By July we will have enough, we will have the 600 million doses for which we contracted,” he added.
The United States administered 57 million doses of the COVID vaccine; 41 million people received their first vaccine, 16 million are completely vaccinated.
The sudden cessation of the vaccination process comes as the daily figures for Saturday show the number of people hospitalized with coronavirus continues to fall, with 58,000 registered. It is the smallest number in more than three and a half months.
There were 2,074 daily deaths in the last 24 hours. The levels are now similar to those seen before the virus grew last spring and summer.
As daily rates of infection drop dramatically, thousands of Americans die every day from the virus, and less than 15 percent of the U.S. population has been vaccinated against it.
Dr Anthony Fauci said severe winter storms across the country this week delayed the distribution of six million doses of COVID-19 vaccine
The United States administered 57 million doses of the COVID vaccine; 41 million people received their first vaccine, 16 million are completely vaccinated
The frozen blast in most of the US this week has injected more confusion and frustration into the national COVID-19 vaccination action.
In Texas, health officials said more than 100,000 primary doses and 300,000 secondary doses to be administered this week were still waiting to be shipped to the state.
The missed doses are expected to arrive in the first half of next week.
In Houston, some vaccination sites reopened later this week. A new mass FEMA vaccination site at the city’s NRG Park promises to vaccinate 42,000 people a week.
In much of the country, including Texas, Georgia and Alabama, snowy and slippery weather has either led to the direct closure of vaccination sites or sustained transport, with delays expected to continue for days.
People scheduled for the COVID-19 vaccine are waiting outside the Westchester County Center in White Plains, NY on Wednesday. New York City was approaching a dramatic slowdown in its vaccination launch on Saturday, with only 1,000 doses at hand after snowstorms delayed vaccine deliveries.
New York City was approaching a dramatic slowdown in its vaccination launch on Saturday, with only 1,000 doses at hand after snowstorms delayed vaccine deliveries.
“Delayed shipments have stopped our entire vaccination effort. This morning, New York City has less than 1,000 first doses available. Avery Cohen, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bill de Blasio, wrote on Twitter.
This has led to local officials advocating for vaccination sites to extend their operating hours and to crowd in additional appointments.
When it comes to the vaccination effort on Friday, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio explained that New York City had to delay scheduling up to 35,000 meetings for the first dose of people due to shortages.
Those whose meetings were not canceled over the weekend were still able to receive their shots.
New York State is also scheduling appointments for new mass vaccination sites that opened Wednesday in Brooklyn and Queens in partnership with FEMA, according to the New York Times.
State officials said they received 40 percent of the vaccine allocation for the week and expected the rest to be distributed on Sunday.
The main reason for the slowdown came after bad weather shut down two key vaccine dispatch centers: the FedEx center in Memphis and a similar site run by UPS in Louisville, Kentucky, through which the batches pass.
The Federal Agency for Emergency Management noted that another 2,000 vaccination sites were in areas that suffered power outages.
A public health expert said the delays were unacceptable.
“The fact that vaccination centers take snow days just means supporting things more than they already are,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “The virus does not last on snowy days.”
Adalja said people in charge of vaccination efforts need to find ways to be more weather-resistant, “just as postal agents can deliver mail by sleet or snow.” He suggested that clinics use better contingency plans. The goal, he said, must be “a continuous assembly line for vaccines that enter people’s arms.”
The sudden cessation of the vaccination process comes as the daily figures for Saturday show the number of people hospitalized with coronavirus continues to fall, with 58,000 registered. It is the smallest number in more than three and a half months
There were 2,074 daily deaths in the last 24 hours. Levels are now similar to those seen before the virus grew last spring and summer.
Jo Dohogne of Bartlett, Tennessee, said she scheduled two meetings this week to receive the second dose of the Modern vaccine, but both were canceled due to bad weather.
Dohogne, 75, who has multiple sclerosis, said she felt left out as the six-week mark for the second dose approached after the first vaccination on Jan. 14.
“I’m just stressed … it’s like it’s taking my whole life,” Dohogne said.
In Washington, COVID-19 White House coordinator Jeff Zients said that in places where vaccination sites have been closed, such as Texas, the government encourages sites to increase their hours after they open.
“We want to make sure that because we’ve wasted some time in some states so that people can have needles in their arms, our partners are doing everything they can to make up for lost ground,” he said.
In southern Nevada, officials reported that winter storms delayed a shipment of Modern vaccines scheduled to be administered as the second dose this week.
The US vaccinates an average of 1.7 million Americans a day against COVID-19, up from less than 1 million a month ago. The new figures from the White House show a steady increase in the rate of vaccinations compared to the first month in office of President Joe Biden.
After the first Covid-19 death was announced in the US in February 2020, it took about three months to exceed 100,000, during a first wave that hit New York in particular.
But as the outbreak has grown in the United States, the death rate has risen by 400,000 in just over a month amid a peak fueled in part by holiday gatherings.
‘It’s awful. It’s historic. For more than a hundred years, we haven’t seen anything like this since the 1918 flu pandemic, “Anthony Fauci, chief adviser to US President Joe Biden, told NBC’s” Meet The Press. “
“It’s amazing when you look at the numbers, almost unbelievable, but it’s true,” he added, as the fee on the Johns Hopkins University tracking site was 497,600.
