![]() "The locals get frustrated with states, thinking the states have all this information, but the states are in the same position as the locals. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. ![]() "States don't know what they will get week to week," said Dr. The state agency has tried to give local health providers consistent information about how many doses they'll receive at their clinics and hospitals, but Avula said state officials will have to instead explain the erratic allocations. Danny Avula, Virginia's COVID-19 vaccine coordinator, said the department learned in the middle of last week that it could get up to 80,000 doses, but - for reasons unclear to the Virginia team - the allocation increased to 106,000 by Thursday when it went to place orders. In Virginia, allocations to the state Department of Health vary not only week to week, but day to day. "We are truly sorry, but unfortunately, the vaccine supply is not under our control." Unfortunately, your appointment has been cancelled due to a sudden decrease in the amount of COVID-19 vaccine being supplied to us," the email said. "You are receiving this email because you are scheduled for a vaccine appointment. 14, Mount Sinai Health System sent a flurry of emails out to elderly patients across New York City, just two days after expanding eligibility to New Yorkers ages 65 and up. In the meantime, many Americans are experiencing this problem firsthand in the form of canceled appointments. Sorting it out will be critical to meeting Biden's goal of 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days. ![]() The week-by-week system also makes it hard to plan for the second doses that everyone needs because they come three or four weeks after the initial dose.Īs President-elect Joe Biden's team prepares to take over on Wednesday, officials are aware of the problem and will have to decide how to address it, according to a member of the transition team. State health officials say the unpredictable shipments have led to chaos on the ground, including the inability to quickly use up all of the doses sent to them. But the amount that each state is sent has fluctuated as Operation Warp Speed changes the quantities available week by week. For each of the past three weeks, the federal government got about 4.3 million shots. This time, however, the most pressing problem isn't the overpromising of supply. Overly optimistic production forecasts turned out to be a major disappointment in the rollout of the H1N1 vaccine more than a decade ago, also leading to canceled appointments and widespread frustrations with the government's messaging. Gustave Perna, because he didn't want to count on supplies before they were ready. The US launched Operation Warp Speed, an initiative to deliver coronavirus shots to Americans, in May. The decision to go week by week was made by Operation Warp Speed's chief operating officer, Gen.
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