Pharmacist signs plea agreement after vaccines removed from cold storage, left to spoil
The Biden administration announced Tuesday an increase in vaccine supply to states.
“First, after review of the current vaccine supply and manufacturing plants, I can announce that we will increase overall weekly vaccination distributions of states, tribes and territories from 8.6 million doses to a minimum of 10 million doses,” President Biden said in remarks Tuesday.
“Starting next week. That’s an increase of 1.4 million doses per week… You all know that vaccines were distributed to states based on population, based on population. The smaller the state, the less vaccine. The bigger the state, the more they get. And so this is going to allow millions of more Americans to get vaccinated sooner than previously anticipated. We’ve got a long way to go, though,” he added.
States have been saying they don’t have enough vaccine, and many have also said they have been getting confusing information about how much vaccine they are getting and when from the federal government.
The official said the government plans to try to fix this. “And to give state and local leaders the transparency of supply they’ve been asking for, HHS will provide allocation estimates three weeks in advance and the estimates will be updated on a running basis so every state has at least three weeks’ notice to help them plan for their vaccination distribution and administrations,” a senior administration official said.
This does not include any extra vaccines that might win emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has granted EUA to two vaccines – one made by Moderna and one by Pfizer with its partner BioNTech. Johnson & Johnson is working on a vaccine and expects to report its results from clinical trials within weeks.
“We are obviously hopeful that there will be an additional source of supply. If that is the case, you can be sure we will be taking advantage of that,” the official said.
