States to receive biggest boost yet in vaccine doses, White House tells governors

[Taka]

Exclusive: States to receive biggest boost yet in vaccine doses, White House tells governors

The number of doses states will receive will increase from the 8.6 million a week they received during Biden's first week in office to 13.5 million.

www.usatoday.com

States will receive their biggest boost yet in coronavirus vaccine doses this week, a 23% increase over the previous week and a 57% increase since President Joe Biden took office, administration officials told governors Tuesday.

The White House announced that it's doubling to 2 million the number of doses sent directly to pharmacies.

"This program will expand access to neighborhoods across the country," Jeff Zients, Biden's COVID-19 coordinator, told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview before holding his weekly call with governors.

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The number of doses states will receive will increase from the 8.6 million a week they received during Biden's first week in office to the 13.5 million that Zients told governors Tuesday they will receive.

"That's a minimum," Zients said. "Supply will continue to ramp up."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden's chief medical adviser, told CNN Tuesday that vaccines may not be available to the general public until mid-May or even June. Fauci had previously said vaccinations could reach lower priority groups as early as April.

Fauci said the earlier estimate was based on an expectation that Johnson & Johnson would be able to provide more doses than now looks possible.

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The administration is working on ways it can help improve the often-confusing vaccination sign-up process while expanding accessibility through pharmacies, community health centers, mobile units and mass vaccination sites.

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Governors expressed appreciation for the Biden administration's practice of giving them a three-week outlook on the minimum number of doses they will receive.

They asked the administration for more say in how the federal government distributes vaccines to pharmacies and community health centers in their states.

"We need better coordination between the federal government and the state government, so we know what pharmacies they're sending to," Cuomo, the head of the National Governors Association, said Monday. "Some pharmacies do a better job than others."

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Biden set a goal of administering 100 million doses in his first 100 days.

"With the progress we're making I believe we'll not only reach that, we'll break it," he tweeted Tuesday.

That's required increasing vaccine supply along with the number of vaccination sites and vaccinators.

Zients attributed the 57% increase in vaccine doses to states to planned production increases by vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna, as well as actions by the administration. Those included using the Defense Production Act to get Pfizer what it needed to speed up production, he said.

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[ajszenk]

The good news for US residents with vaccine availability keeps rolling in. So thankful for competency at a time like this.

 

[RoKKeR]

It feels so great to know there are competent people in charge now. Let's hope we can keep it that way for a while.

 

[Domino Theory]

All of this great progress and hope was done in just four weeks of this administration taking over. Four weeks eclipsing four years of abhorrent governance from the last administration.