States Urged to Widen Vaccination Pool Amid Slow Start in U.S.

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A pharmacist administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to a resident of the Brooklyn Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare nursing home in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration urged that vaccines be given according to how the agency has authorized them, in a rebuke to officials attempting to alter the timing and dosage of shots.
A pharmacist administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine to a resident of the Brooklyn Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare nursing home in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration urged that vaccines be given according to how the agency has authorized them, in a rebuke to officials attempting to alter the timing and dosage of shots.

(Bloomberg) -- Top U.S. health officials encouraged states to start vaccinating people more widely, acknowledging that the immunization rollout has been slower than anticipated and opening the spigot for a broader range of Americans to begin getting shots.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar during a call with reporters Wednesday blamed the introduction of Covid-19 shots around the holidays and overly detailed state plans for hindering the vaccination campaign. He urged governors to vaccinate more seniors and other high-risk populations to prevent shots from sitting in freezers.

If governors “are using all of the vaccine that is allocated, ordered, shipped, distributed, they’re getting it into health-care providers’ arms, that’s great,” Azar said. “But if for some reason their distribution is struggling and they’re having vaccines sit in freezers, then by all means you ought to be opening up to 70 and over, 65 and over. You ought to be making sure the nursing home patients are getting vaccinated.”

About 5.2 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc. have been administered in the U.S. since mid-December, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. That represents a fraction of the number of doses distributed so far.

Azar and other officials from Operation Warp Speed said they expect vaccinations to start accelerating, though they declined to provide the number of shots being administered daily and how many they expect to be given by the end of the month. National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins earlier Wednesday during an interview with the Washington Post said he expects the U.S. to give about 1 million shots per day, a number to which Operation Warp Speed officials declined comment.

Azar said states can start sending shots to pharmacy chains the federal government has partnered with to administer Covid-19 vaccines in an attempt to increase vaccinations.

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