More than 400,000 people have died from the COVID-19 virus in the United States alone. With the increasing number of infections, health experts and officials have turned their attention to reducing the impact of the new variant that has sparked alarm all over the world.
Health experts have called for an increase in vaccination rollout, and enforcement of preventative measures on the public, as a variant of the virus could send cases surging once again.
States complain that the demand for the vaccine is outpacing the federal government supply
Some officials say the number of vaccines received in states are lower than the reported amount given by the federal government.
“I worry desperately in the next six to 12 weeks, we’re going to see a situation with this pandemic unlike anything we’ve seen yet to date,” said Michael Osterholm, a coronavirus adviser to President-elect Joe Biden and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health announced its supply will be exhausted by Thursday if there isn’t an additional allotment. The Mayor of New York, Bill de blassio, said in a statement that New York is also set to run out of vaccines on Thursday.
Effort is being made to increase the number of vaccine rollouts to the public
In the US, more than 10.5 million people have received at least the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, about 1.6 million of whom have received a second dose, according to CDC data last updated on Friday.
Over claims of stockpiling, Dr. Anthony Fauci—an infectious disease expert, said it was a misunderstanding.
“In the beginning, when we wanted to make sure that everyone who got one dose would get a second dose. Because of the uncertainty in the smoothness of the rollout of the doses that would be available, half of the doses would be held back so that people would be guaranteed to get their second dose,” he said in an interview on Tuesday.