Covid Vaccine Update: The United States will not meet the 20 million target dose by the end of the year

Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui / Bloomberg

The United States vaccinates an average of only 200,000 people a day against Covid-19 and many states have used only a small percentage of the shipments sent to them this month.

Data collected from states and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows that while Operation Warp Speed ​​has distributed millions of doses, some states have taken a long time to put them in people’s arms. According to a Bloomberg News analysis, the nation will almost certainly not reach the Trump administration’s 20 million vaccine target by the end of the year.

The latest CDC account, on Monday, showed that despite the distribution of 11.45 million doses from Moderna Inc., and Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, only 2.13 million people had been shot. This represents approximately 20% of early allocations. Oregon has only used 15.3% of its supply, Ohio 14.3% and Maryland 10.9%.

Officials blame a delicate vaccine with complex storage requirements, uncertainty about dose delivery, and pressure on local health agencies already facing historic challenges.

“We would like to have a better uptake,” said Steve Kelso, a spokesman for the Kent County Department of Health in Michigan, where the state has used 18.5 percent of its doses. “We could put more needles in our arms.”

Which of your assignments do states use?

The analysis shows variations in how quickly states work through the vaccine

Source: state dashboards and public commentary, US government data

More than 330,000 Americans have died from the pandemic and tens of thousands more are expected to succumb in the coming months, making vaccine implementation even more critical. But Moncef Slaoui, chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, said last week that the target of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of the year is unlikely to be met.

In recent weeks, countries around the world have launched vaccination campaigns in a global race to end the pandemic. Some far outnumber the United States: Israel, whose size and population are similar to those in New Jersey, shot an average of 60,000 people a day during its first week. If the United States moved at the same rate, they would be doing 2.2 million inoculations a day, ten times their current rate.

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday that the figures reported do not reflect the latest situation.

“We are closely monitoring data reported from jurisdictions on vaccine administration, and we are encouraged by the work they have done so far during the holidays,” Michael Pratt said. “A gap is expected between gunfire and reported data.”

President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening reiterated in a tweet that “it is up to the states to distribute the vaccines.”

But President-elect Joe Biden said in a previous speech that “the effort to distribute the vaccine is not advancing as it should” and that “it will move heaven and earth to get us in the right direction.” .

Biden said his administration would get 100 million shots in its first 100 days if Congress provides funding. “If it continues to move like it does now, it will take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people,” he said.

Michigan Muddle

Bloomberg News analyzed the first three assignments to states, including two weeks of Pfizer shots and one of Moderna. In some cases, the totals allocated are higher than what states claim to have received. The number of doses sent aligns with what the CDC says has been distributed, allowing for consistent state-by-state comparisons.

Michigan has used less than 1 in 5 of its 455,900 assigned doses as of Dec. 21, according to Bloomberg analysis.

“The lack of certainty about vaccine assignments, the timing of assignments and the vaccination scheduling process of thousands of employees have made it a challenge,” said John Karasinski, a spokesman for Michigan Health & Hospital Association.

Kent County, which includes Grand Rapids, formed a group of health departments, hospitals and pharmacies with the goal of vaccinating about 2,200 people in the first phase, aimed at health workers. So far, only about 575 vaccines have been made.

Kelso, the spokesman, said some employees do not want to deprive a front-line worker of a vaccine. Holidays can be a daunting task. And there are people who remain scammed about safety, even some of the health department staff.

“A lot of people don’t want to be the first kid on the blog,” Kelso said.

Other groups are more successful. Sparrow Health System has vaccinated about a quarter of its staff, pharmacy director Todd Belding said in an interview. Michigan’s central hospital system administers about 2,000 doses a week, roughly in terms of its allocation by the state, he said.

Progressive release is slower than if vaccines were available to everyone who arrived, such as the flu vaccine. The design is somewhat delayed: hospitals do not want to vaccinate entire departments at once, in case the side effects force workers. But Sparrow is also coordinating with officials to target populations such as prison medical staff and independent health professionals. Identifying and reaching these groups takes time, a challenge that will be maintained when vaccines are passed on to food workers and teachers.

“This prioritization has added a certain level of complexity,” Belding said.

Other states move more slowly. As of Dec. 28, Maryland had worked out just 10.9 percent of its 191,075 doses in the first three weekly assignments, according to Bloomberg analysis.

In Montgomery County, the head of public health, Travis Gayles, said he was preparing for obstacles such as staff shortages. Years of budget cuts restricted municipalities ’ability to generate effective virus responses from scratch (at one point, Montgomery was counting fax virus cases), and those cuts could also hinder the distribution of the vaccine.

“With Covid right now, it definitely shows a bright light on the impact of these budget decisions,” Gayles said.

In New York, officials look at vaccination sites and put “gentle pressure to pick it up,” said Larry Schwartz, a member of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Covid-19 Task Force. Part of the state’s allocation goes to pharmacies that the federal government inoculates residents and nursing home staff, and it may have taken them a while to prepare, Schwartz said.

“Like anything that’s completely new, there’s always a bit of an uphill period,” he said.

Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, said the Trump administration’s reliance on states has obstructed the response. The Warp Speed ​​program was very successful in helping to develop and distribute a vaccine, “he said,” but it is currently being blocked. “

“We set up tents hospitals and tents everywhere and let the National Guard do it,” Jha said in a telephone interview. “This last mile has got very little investment. I think it will be a huge problem. ”

Private institutions are struggling, even those that work relatively well. In Virginia, which has generally used about 15 percent of its early allocation, Sentara Healthcare has donated about 60 percent of its doses, said Jordan Asher, chief medical officer of the 12-hospital system. The internal goal was to distribute it in three weeks and Asher said Sentara was slightly ahead of schedule.