U.S. Has No Covid-19 Vaccine Reserve Despite Trump Administration's Claims, Report Says
Category: News & Politics
Via: sister-mary-agnes-ample-bottom • 3 years ago • 12 commentsBy: Joe Walsh (Forbes)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Despite promising this week to free up scores of extra Covid-19 vaccine doses, the federal government doesn't actually have a reserve of extra shots, the Washington Post reported Friday, leading public health officials to worry vaccines are in shorter supply than expected and dashing their hopes to ramp up the pace of immunizations.
Outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar agreed Tuesday to release all available Covid-19 vaccine doses, instead of stockpiling millions of doses to use as second shots (both Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines call for patients to receive two shots), a move widely expected to speed up the pace of vaccinations.
Despite this apparent policy change, the federal government had already begun releasing all available doses in late December, meaning the government did not actually build up a vaccine surplus, the Post reported, citing state and federal officials.
This revelation has frustrated state public health officials, some of whom had expected Azar's announcement to lead to an immediate surge in vaccine supplies and planned to make more residents eligible for vaccinations as a result.
Oregon's health director Patrick Allen called the pivot "extremely disturbing" and warned the state may need to shelve its plans to start vaccinating seniors immediately, in a letter to Azar obtained by Forbes (the Post first reported on Allen's letter).
An HHS spokesperson told the Post the final vaccine doses that were held in reserve were shipped out last weekend, but states still haven't used up all the total shots available to them (HHS did not respond to questions from Forbes).
Chief Critic
Ashish Jha, a Brown University public health professor who has criticized the slower-than-expected pace of vaccinations, said the revelation of no vaccine reserve "sets us months behind where I thought we were."
What To Watch For
President-elect Joe Biden promised last week to free up all available vaccine doses when he takes office, betting manufacturers will be able to supply second doses for patients later, a strategy Azar adopted earlier this week despite initially calling it risky. But if the federal government has already released most of the doses it held in reserve, Biden's plan is unlikely to immediately increase vaccine supply.
Big Number
12.3 million. That's the number of Americans who have received at least one dose of Pfizer or Moderna's Covid-19 vaccine, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures released Friday. About 31.2 million doses have been distributed to states, meaning states still haven't put the vast majority of available doses into patients' arms.
Key Background
The United States fell far short of its goal of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of 2020, and many health officials are frustrated immunizations aren't moving faster, especially as Covid-19 infections and deaths spike nationwide. Some public health experts have focused on the supply side, pressing vaccine manufacturers to pick up the pace and urging the federal government to send out doses to individual states faster, which led both Biden and Azar to promise to release all available reserve doses. But officials also say the rollout is also facing delays because vaccination sites don't have enough capacity, which explains why millions of doses were shipped to states but are sitting unused.
Vaccine reserve was already exhausted when Trump administration vowed to release it, dashing hopes of expanded access (Washington Post)
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Learning that there was no Covid vaccine plan in place, none, nada, zilch, was a huge disappointment. Not only that, but Trump signed last minute orders cancelling the travel ban and other Covid-related restrictions. Wow.
What? You mean Trump lied? No, say it ain't so.
Especially since Trump did have competent medical professionals and administrators, that could have gotten the job done, if Trump weren't too busy ignoring and downplaying COVID.
Of course as soon as they would show their competence, Trump would fire them and replace them with a Trump campaign donor.
Again, the FDA was late to approve the vaccines. The US is at the back of the line in terms of product being allocated. The drug companies are producing for those countries that ordered first. It doesn't how many EO's Biden signs- the US will not be put at the front of the line.
Don't worry China Joe put out 25 EO's on his first day in office.
Funny how the left screamed when Trump put a travel ban on Europe and other Covid 19 hot spots. Now Biden's EO reinstates them. The left's hypocrisy knows no bounds.
What a steaming pile of bullshit comment. I'm not going to bother asking you for a link because you will not be able to find one.
One doesn't need a link............just a memory. IF one is truly honest.
It doesn't work that way, Jim...much to your chagrin, I'm sure. If either one of you had a link, you would have spanked it up before my strawberry Pop-tarts popped out of the toaster. For future reference, there are too many here who have either suffered through Covid, or had someone close to them who suffered through it, or worse, died from it. There isn't a single one of us who would...scream "when Trump put a travel ban on Europe and other Covid 19 hot spots".
Unbeknownst to you, you are preaching to the choir.
Then it's one choir member preaching to another. I'm truly sorry that you had to go, or might even still be going through it. It's painful and frightening and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Not quite sure about the "screaming"... I haven't gotten that far yet, but the following "travel bans" were put in place, some as early as January 2020:
Found a couple that were expressing frustration and were upset with the Euro travel bans:
Quote from the last one (from March 2020):
Trump made no travel bans. The most you could say is that he implemented a limited travel restriction on those locations.
It was reported today that there is NO VACCINE DISTRIBUTION PLAN from the Trump administration. The Biden administration will be starting from scratch.