Coronavirus

Vaccine Supplies Are Already Stumbling

Written by SK Ashby

We all know the Trump regime would piss on you and tell you it's raining, but the rubber is literally meeting the road now and it looks like they won't live up to their early promises.

Nearly 3 million doses of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine were included in the first shipment delivered to states this week, but next week's shipment is going to be significantly smaller.

During a briefing to explain that some doses of the vaccine were recalled after being stored at incorrect temperatures, officials also disclosed that next week's shipment will be about half of what was promised and smaller than the first shipment.

From Bloomberg:

U.S. officials said at the briefing that about 2 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be allocated for the country next week, fewer than the 2.9 million available this week when the first shots shipped. They offered no explanation as to why.

Alex Azar, the Department of Health and Human Services secretary, acknowledged production challenges that have been previously disclosed by Pfizer.

“As you know, they ended up coming short by half of what they thought they’d be able to produce and what they’d announced they’d be able to produce” in 2020, Azar said. [...] Operation Warp Speed has said it expects to have enough vaccines between Pfizer and another shot on deck from Moderna Inc. to inoculate 20 million Americans in December.

Vaccinating 20 million Americans in December would require 40 million doses and, as of the week of Christmas, we'll be at about 5 million doses or enough to vaccinate 2.5 million people.

Maybe we'll find 35 million more doses in the very last week of the year, but that doesn't seem very likely, does it?

Look, we all know it's going to take six months or longer to vaccinate most of the country, but things like this give me pause to consider if it will take even longer than we think. We really don't know what's happening under the hood and if there are more shortages coming the Trump regime isn't going to tell us ahead of time.

To some extent it's understandable if they can't "produce what they’d announced they’d be able to produce" in the early weeks, but what if that shortage persists?

I would be more worried if Trump was reelected. We're all very fortunate that he wasn't.