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The Army general leading the U.S. vaccine distribution effort said a delay between when the injections occur and when they are authorized for shipment led to widespread confusion about how many doses states will receive. next week.
Gen. Gustave Perna, director of operations for Operation Warp Speed, the US vaccine program, said he took “personal responsibility” for a lack of communication that led some states to complain that they were reducing their allocations without explanation.
Perna said that after doses of Pfizer Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccines are manufactured. The US authorities must verify their quality and consider them ready for launch. In the first week of assignments, he said, an inventory of verified shots had accumulated. But during the second week, it was necessary to verify the newly manufactured doses, which means that the states would receive less than they had anticipated.
The United States is still on track to ship 7.9 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine next week, Perna said, including 2 million from the Pfizer injection and 5.9 million from the vaccine. Modern Vaccine Inc. cleared for emergency use Friday by the Food and Drug Administration. The distribution of Moderna’s injection has begun, and on Saturday the boxes are packed for the shipments that will arrive from Monday.
Operation Warp Speed initially gave states forecasts on the expected supply of Pfizer shots on which to base their plans, Perna said. But when next week’s allowances were set on Tuesday, “I had to reduce the allowances to meet the releasable doses that were presented to me,” Perna said in a briefing with reporters Saturday.
Read More: Some States Say US Will Reduce Vaccine Allocations By 40%
The explanation covers a week of Conflicting claims from state leaders, federal officials, and Pfizer. The drugmaker said this week it had millions of doses awaiting shipping instructions from the United States, while US officials disputed that any vaccine was being withheld.
Perna blamed the confusion on a gap between plans and reality. “The plans on paper are very good,” he said. “Execution is where we learn and adapt accordingly.” He said the country should expect a steady stream of vaccines in the weeks and months to come.
The delay in the release of Pfizer’s vaccines was a timing issue, Perna said, rather than a problem with the underlying quality of the vaccines.
“As far as I know, there has been no problem with Pfizer vaccines going from manufactured to releasable,” he said. “It’s just about the process you have to go through to become releasable.”
Washington Governor Jay Inslee said he had spoken with Perna and thanked her for the explanation in a cheep Friday afternoon. “It appears that this is not indicative of long-term challenges with vaccine production,” Inslee said.
Perna said the United States is still on track to allocate 20 million doses of the vaccines by the end of December, although some may be delivered in the first week of January.
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