Mr. Klain, in comments directed at states’ disappointment that a reserve of additional vaccines that the Trump administration had promised to release did not exist, said that his team was “inheriting a huge mess” in terms of vaccine production and distribution.
“But we have a plan to fix it,” Mr. Klain said, alluding to a federal vaccination campaign that Mr. Biden announced on Friday. “We think there are things we can do to speed up the delivery of that vaccine.”
Administration officials last week urged states to loosen eligibility criteria and to begin vaccinating all Americans 65 and older. Some states, including New York, moved quickly to comply, prompting a surge of interest — and confusion — as thousands of newly eligible people sought appointments to get vaccinated.
But there was no stockpile of additional vaccine doses awaiting distribution to those states, it turned out — only the amounts already promised, much of it to be given as second doses to people who already had received their first doses.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Sunday that he, too, had been trying to sort through the confusion about how many doses were held by the federal government and where they were going.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/world/Covid-deaths-Biden.html
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