NEW YORK • Scattered shortages of Covid-19 vaccines in the United States persisted under pressure from growing demand, as previously inoculated Americans returned for their required second shots and millions of newly eligible people scrambled to get their first.
The supply gaps, coming as the US vaccination effort enters its second month, prompted some healthcare systems to suspend appointments for first-time vaccine seekers and one New York healthcare system to cancel a slew of existing ones.
"As eligibility increases, you just increase demand, but we're not able to increase supply," Northwell Health spokesman Joe Kemp told Reuters.
Northwell, New York's largest healthcare provider, offers appointments only as it gets more vaccine, and only after allocating doses to people scheduled for their second shots, Mr Kemp said.
While healthcare workers and nursing home residents and staff got first priority, eligibility for the vaccines has since widened, with some states opening it to healthy people aged 65 and up.
Besides New York, signs of vaccine supply strains appeared in Vermont, Michigan, South Carolina, New Jersey and Oregon.
In Oregon, Governor Kate Brown said vaccinations for seniors and educators would be delayed, while Vermont Governor Phil Scott said the state would focus exclusively on people aged above 75 because of "unpredictable" federal supplies.
"Rather than over-promising a limited supply to a broad population that we know we can't vaccinate all at once, we believe our strategy will get shots in arms faster and more efficiently, with less loss of life," Mr Scott said on Twitter.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said last week that the looser requirements would make seven million of New York's 19 million residents eligible for inoculations. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said last Friday that supplies were still coming in at "a very paltry" 100,000 doses a week, which put it on course to run dry in the coming week.
Since the first vaccine was administered in the US in the middle of last month, nearly 12.3 million doses have been given, out of 31.2 million doses distributed, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
REUTERS