Senior US health officials have encouraged states to start vaccinating people on a larger scale, acknowledging that the launch of immunization has been slower than expected and opening the way for a wider range of Americans to start shooting.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, during a call with reporters on Wednesday, blamed the introduction of Covid-19 photos during the holidays and too detailed state plans to prevent the vaccination campaign. He urged governors to vaccinate more seniors and other high-risk populations to prevent the shots from hanging in the freezers.
Photographer: Micah Green / Bloomberg
If the rulers “use all the vaccine that is allocated, ordered, shipped, distributed, take it into the arms of health care providers, it’s wonderful,” Azar said. “But if, for some reason, their distribution is difficult and they have vaccines placed in freezers, then by all means you should open up to 70 and over, 65 and over. You should make sure that patients at nursing homes get vaccinated. ”
Approximately 5.2 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc. have been administered in the United States since mid-December, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. That’s about 31 percent of the doses distributed so far, according to the Bloomberg tracker.
Accelerating plans
Azar and other Warp Speed officials said they expected vaccinations to begin to accelerate, although they refused to provide the number of vaccines given daily and how many are expected to be given by the end of the month. Earlier on Wednesday, the director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, in an interview with the Washington Post, said he expects the United States to provide about 1 million photos a day, a number that Warp Speed officials say. comment declined.
HHS has announced that it will provide $ 3 billion to states, territories and cities to support vaccinations against Covid-19. The department will also provide $ 19.1 billion to jurisdictions for testing, tracking and other pandemic mitigation measures.
Azar said the administration has examined factors that have slowed implementation in the past few weeks. Operation Warp Speed will partner with more than a dozen pharmacy chains earlier than anticipated to increase vaccinations. Azar said states can start sending doses to participating locations.
(Updates with additional details in the last two paragraphs.)