Biden officials address vaccine distribution woes

WASHINGTON • Four Biden officials have tried to manage public expectations about vaccine distribution, as frustration grows among Americans over long lines, cancelled appointments and other daunting issues.

The officials also tried to smooth over confusion about President Joe Biden's goal of 100 million shots in the first 100 days of his administration.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease specialist, called the figure "a floor, not a ceiling", on CBS programme Face The Nation on Sunday.

Dr Fauci clarified that Mr Biden was talking about doses, not fully vaccinated people. Within those 100 days, he said, some 67 million people might have received the second of their two required vaccine doses, with another 37 million having got just the first dose.

By Inauguration Day last Wednesday, nearly 36 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had been distributed to state and local governments. However, only about 16.5 million shots had been administered by that time.

Apart from Dr Fauci, the three other officials are Dr Vivek Murthy, the President's nominee for surgeon-general; Mr Xavier Becerra, his nominee for secretary of health and human services; and Mr Ron Klain, Mr Biden's chief of staff.

In appearances on the Sunday talk shows, each deflected questions about whether Mr Biden's goal was too ambitious or too modest.

Instead, Mr Klain said that the vaccine distribution infrastructure inherited from the Trump administration needed to be fortified, and that many bottlenecks had to be cleared.

"We need more vaccine, we need more vaccinators, we need more vaccination sites," Mr Klain said on NBC programme Meet The Press.

He also noted that there was no distribution plan for the vaccine set up by the Trump administration. "The process to distribute the vaccine, particularly outside of nursing homes and hospitals, out into the community as a whole, did not really exist when we came into the White House," Mr Klain said.

Public health officials are eagerly awaiting late-stage trial results for the one-dose vaccine under development by Johnson & Johnson.

On ABC programme This Week, Dr Murthy said that while the 100 million-dose goal could be achieved with the vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer that are already authorised, he was hopeful about adding the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as well.

Dr Murthy said the government also wanted to increase research on virus treatments. He mentioned as well dispatching mobile vaccine units to remote communities.

Mr Becerra compared the current pandemic situation, with a severely hampered vaccine roll-out and the country hurtling towards 600,000 deaths, to a stricken airplane.

He said the administration would be able to change its trajectory but it would not happen overnight. "You've got to give us a chance to figure out what's going on in the cockpit, causing this plane to nosedive so severely," he said on CNN programme State Of The Union.

Dr Fauci and other health officials have been trying to reassure the public that the vaccines that are now available would be effective against new variants of the virus that were first identified in Britain and South Africa.

The vaccines could be modified if a particular variant posed a risk, Dr Fauci said on Sunday, but there was no indication yet that modifications would be needed.

NYTIMES, REUTERS