Overwhelmed US states tap National Guard for help

LANDOVER (Maryland) • As tens of thousands of his National Guard colleagues descended on the country's capital to ensure the peaceful transfer of presidential power, Mr Emmanuel Alfaro was doing what he viewed as the pinnacle of his career in the Guard - administering Covid-19 vaccines to his fellow citizens.

"It's a highlight, being able to come out and help the public out," said Mr Alfaro, a senior airman and medic with the 175th Air National Guard, whose normal duties are helping at healthcare centres in Maryland.

As the pandemic continues to rage nationwide and a vaccine programme to control it struggles, governors are increasingly turning to the National Guard to help expedite the process.

Meanwhile, US President-elect Joe Biden has chosen former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner David Kessler to help lead the Covid-19 vaccine programme Operation Warp Speed, transition officials said. This comes after Dr Moncef Slaoui, the programme's chief adviser, resigned at the request of the incoming Biden team, in a plan that would see him stay in the role for a month to help with the transition.

Dr Kessler, who led the FDA after being appointed by then President George H.W. Bush to the top position in 1990 and served till 1997, will share top responsibilities for the initiative with General Gustave Perna, the head of Operation Warp Speed.

At least 16 US states and territories are using Guard members to give shots, in addition to doctors, nurses and others skilled in injections. Many more states are using thousands more Guard personnel for logistical tasks, such as putting together vaccine kits, logging in patients and controlling queues.

In West Virginia, about 100 Guard troops are helping with distribution across the state. "We are a logistical operation here. That is what the military does best," said a spokesman for the Guard there.

The growing presence of the Guard is a stark reminder that even as the country reels from the Capitol attack last week, a pandemic continues to roil all the states, which are struggling to expedite a complex vaccine roll-out with no modern precedent.

Since January last year, one in 14 people who live in the United States has been infected with the coronavirus, and at least one in 862 has died. States such as California and Arizona, with some of the highest number of infections in the nation, are contending with exhaustion among healthcare workers and inundations across their medical centres.

States have struggled to get the roughly 30 million doses of vaccines released by the Trump administration to Americans. The demand for vaccines has greatly outstripped supply. Registration websites have crashed. Endless waits on phone lines have frustrated people seeking appointments.

Some private healthcare centres have been unable to work through bureaucracies to get doses to the right people.

NYTIMES