New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) blamed Walgreens and the federal government for slow vaccine rollouts in the Garden State during a Wednesday night interview on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.”
“The main reason is the federal program with CFS and Walgreens,” said Murphy. “They’ve basically collected these doses, they’re planning visits to nursing homes for long-term care, long-term living, and they’re hitting under their weight, especially Walgreens, and that’s where most of the doses left to use are.”
Murphy suggested hosting Shepard Smith that Walgreens “put more bodies on the case” to fix the rollout problem.
On Tuesday, Murphy said New Jersey was effectively equipped to dispense the vaccine, but all providers missed “the vaccine doses.” New Jersey has a population of about 8,882 million and has distributed 898,550 vaccines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while only 432,220 of them have been administered.
Murphy pointed to the doses of the Covid vaccine under state control and said they get into people’s arms more efficiently.
“You can’t find many doses in hospitals or other distribution points that we directly monitor that go unused,” said Murphy. “We’re getting armed with all the areas we can control.”
Smith pushed Murphy back, insisting that “the people are losing it” when it comes to the slow rollout of vaccines. According to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins data, more than 123,000 Americans are currently hospitalized and an average of 3,000 people die every day. The pandemic has killed more than 400,000 people since the pandemic started early last year. Murphy pointed to the federal government.
“There’s no question that we have a massive supply-demand imbalance that starts, with all due respect, with the federal government, at least to date, dropping the ball – about promising and underpowering,” Murphy said. “So, if Walgreens hits 1,000, if CFS hits 1,000, and we as a state continue to do what we’re doing, which is get vaccines into people’s arms, we’re still going to be abandoned by the FBI.”
Murphy asked for up to $ 20 billion in federal aid to make up for the Covid shortages. President Joe Biden said Friday he would use the defense production law to boost vaccine supplies during his first month in office.