Rochelle Walensky, who has been offered to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks after US President-elect Joe Biden announced his team jobbed with dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic at The Queen in Wilmington, Delaware on December 8, 2020.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images
President-elect Joe Biden’s top condition officials are confident the United States will have enough coronavirus vaccine doses to meet the incoming delivery’s goal of inoculating 100 million people in 100 days despite a slower-than-expected rollout of the life-saving drugs.
“That is what the president choice has promised. It will be a hefty lift, but we have enough to do that,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Biden’s pick to lead the Centers for Plague Control and Prevention, told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
The president-elect has vowed to place suppressing the virus as a top priority in a wink he’s sworn into office in the coming days. On Friday, Biden laid out a five-step plan that includes expatiate oning the number of vaccination sites across the U.S., which he believes will accelerate the nation’s ability to get more vaccine measures into Americans’ arms.
The U.S. has fallen far short of its goal of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of last year. While the Trump authority’s Operation Warp Speed has delivered over 31.1 million doses across the country so far, only 12.3 million people pull someones leg been inoculated, according to the most recent CDC data.
In an effort to pick up the pace, the CDC issued new guidelines for state numero unoes on Tuesday that expands vaccine eligibility to everyone age 65 and older as well as to those with comorbid conditions, wish diabetes. The federal government said it would also begin releasing doses that were being held in a “incarnate reserve” to ensure enough supply.
A senior citizen receives the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine in Tucson, Arizona, on Friday, Jan. 15, 2021.
Cheney Orr | Bloomberg | Getty Doubles
Both Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccines, which are the only two so far to be granted emergency authorization in the U.S., require two shots very many weeks apart. The reserve was meant to ensure people who had their first shots would be provided a second dosage later on.
Several Democratic leaders, however, accused the Trump administration of misleading them about the extra distribute of doses after The Washington Post reported on Friday that no such reserve of vaccines existed. Health and Weak Services Secretary Alex Azar responded on Twitter Saturday, saying that they had a stockpile of second doses that were saved toward the end of December.
The HHS chief said that the announcement this week “was that we are releasing the remaining reserved substitute doses according to the established cadence—ensuring second doses would be available at the right interval—and that wealthy forward we’d no longer have a reserve of second doses.”
Biden’s incoming White House chief of staff Ron Klain, the prehistoric Ebola czar under President Barack Obama, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the new administration is “be lefting a huge mess.” However, Klain said he was confident that there will be “continued supply and distribution of that give to hit that target of 100 million shots in 100 days.”
Part of Biden’s five-step plan to ramp up vaccine classification includes greater use of the Defense Production Act, a wartime law that allows the president to compel companies to prioritize manufacturing for country-wide security reasons.
That will allow Biden to increase the number of key resources that will strengthen the stockpile of doses, Klain said. For instance, some of Pfizer’s vaccine vials were found to have an extra sixth administer in them, which could increase the supply of doses by 20%, Klain said.
The federal government, which sends victual kits to the states with items like needles and syringes to administer the drugs, didn’t account for the extra dispenses in their original planning, said Jessica Daley, a pharmacist and vice president with Premier, which acquires medical supplies for thousands of hospitals.
Some health-care providers have since had to dip into their own reserves or prepare tried securing extra supplies on their own, Daley told CNBC on Wednesday. The Biden administration will descent up production of those necessary syringes to access the extra doses, Klain said on Sunday.
“One thing that’s understandably is that the issue of getting 100 million doses in the first 100 days is absolutely a doable thing,” Spotless House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, who will become a medical advisor to Biden once the president-elect is in employment, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
Fauci added that the use of the Defense Production Act will mean the U.S. won’t be “hesitant to use whatever techniques we can to get everything on track,” such as vaccine supplies and Covid-19 testing.
“The feasibility of his goal is absolutely clear,” Fauci claimed of 100 million doses in 100 days. “There’s no doubt about that… it can be done.”
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the prior Food and Drug Administration chief in the Trump administration who sits on the board of Pfizer, said on Sunday that the Biden charge will likely hit their goal of 100 million doses, and Biden’s five-step plan “makes a lot of sense.”
“I contemplate the issues going to become demand,” Gottlieb told “Face the Nation.” “I think they’re going to receive the supply in place and the distribution in place to do that.”
— CNBC’s Tucker Higgins and Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this announcement.
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic testing start-up Tempus and biotech followers Illumina. Pfizer has a manufacturing agreement with Gilead for remdesivir. Gottlieb also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Yacht Line Holdings′ and Royal Caribbean‘s “Healthy Sail Panel.”