New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) blamed Walgreens and the federal government for the slow implantation of Garden State vaccines during an interview Wednesday night on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith.”
“The big reason is the federal program with CVS and Walgreens,” Murphy said. “They basically accumulated those doses, they schedule visits to nursing homes, with a long life, and they’re affecting their weight, especially Walgreens, and that’s where most of the doses that haven’t been used yet are.” .
Murphy suggested welcoming Shepard Smith that Walgreens “put more bodies into the case” to solve the deployment problem.
On Tuesday, Murphy said New Jersey was effectively equipped to administer the vaccine, but that all suppliers were missing “are the vaccine doses.” New Jersey has a population of approximately 8,882 million people and has distributed 898,550 vaccines, while administering only 432,220, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Murphy pointed out doses of state-controlled Covid vaccine and said they are getting into people’s arms more efficiently.
“You can’t find many doses in hospitals or other distribution points that we control directly, that aren’t used,” Murphy said. “We’re getting gunfire with all the areas we can control.”
Smith backtracked with Murphy and stressed that “people are losing out” when it comes to the slow deployment of the vaccine. There are currently more than 123,000 Americans hospitalized and an average of 3,000 people dying every day, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins data. The pandemic has killed more than 400,000 people since the pandemic began early last year. Murphy pointed to the federal government.
“There’s no doubt that we have a huge imbalance between supply and demand, which begins, with all due respect, with the federal government, at least to this day, after dropping the ball over the promise and the delivery, ”Murphy said. “So if Walgreens beats 1,000, if CVS beats 1,000 and we continue as a state doing what we’re doing, which is putting vaccines in people’s arms, they’ve still let us down by the feds.”
Murphy requested up to $ 20 billion in federal aid to help with Covid deficits. President Joe Biden said Friday he would use the Defense Production Act to increase the supply of vaccines during his first month in office.