Biden slams sluggish vaccine rollout after just 3M got shots in December

The sluggish and at times chaotic rollout of COVID-19 vaccines across the country continues to draw strong criticism, particularly from Democrats, as new data reveals just a quarter of the shots distributed to states have been administered, even as Dr. Anthony Fauci warns that it is ‘possible’ the jabs could be required for school or travel.  

As of New Year’s Day, 3.17 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been administered. That is just 25 percent of the 12.4 million doses that have been delivered to states, according to an analysis from Bloomberg. 

And after Dr. Anthony Fauci said recently that officials were considering releasing 20 million doses that are being held in reserve for required booster shots, federal officials do not currently view this as viable option, a senior Trump administration official told CNN correspondent Kristen Holmes on Friday.   

The move came as a repudiation of the strategy in the UK, where doses are being shipped as soon as they are produced, relying on future production to fill the need for booster shots. 

Critics of the UK strategy have argued that it runs the risk of wasting millions of first doses if the vital boosters aren’t available on time, and point out that at least for now, U.S. states already have far more doses than they are able to quickly get into arms. But proponents of the UK strategy argue that it will double the speed of vaccinations.

It came as the total number of Americans infected in the pandemic topped 20 million since March, and coronavirus hospitalizations hit an all-time high for the fourth day in a row on New Years Eve, with nearly 125,400 people receiving inpatient treatment.  

As of Friday, West Virginia has still vaccinated the highest percentage of its population, followed by South Dakota and Maine. Kansas continues to lag the farthest behind in population vaccinated, with just 0.42% of all residents having received the jab

A table shows for each state, vaccine doses received and administered, and the percentage of shots used. Maine has now distributed the highest percentage of its available vaccine, with more than 50% of doses administered

Daily deaths remained harrowing at 3,419 on Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins, after two consecutive record-setting days with over 3,700 daily deaths on both Tuesday and Wednesday. 

President-elect Joe Biden took a swipe at the Trump administration’s oversight in a tweet on Friday, writing: ‘Let me be clear: The Biden-Harris Administration will spare no effort to make sure people are getting vaccinated.’    

Biden has vowed to invoke the Defense Production Act and ensure that 100 million vaccines are administered in his first 100 days in office, though he has offered few concrete details on how this would be achieved.

Even as the slow rollout leaves most people without any opportunity to get the vaccine for now, Dr. Anthony Fauci says it’s ‘quite possible’ that COVID-19 vaccines will become mandatory to attend school or travel outside the country.

‘I’m not sure it’s going to be mandatory from a central government standpoint, like federal government mandates. But there are going to be individual institutions that I’m sure are going to mandate it,’ Fauci, who will be chief medical adviser to Biden, told Newsweek.

‘A citywide school system might require it in some cities but not other cities. And that’s what I mean by things not being done centrally but locally,’ he said.

Asked if the U.S. government could issue a ‘vaccine passport’ to authorize travel abroad, as Israel has done, Fauci responded: ‘Anything is on the table. Anything is possible, of course.’ 

President-elect Joe Biden took a swipe at the Trump administration’s oversight in a tweet on Friday, writing: ‘Let me be clear: The Biden-Harris Administration will spare no effort to make sure people are getting vaccinated’

Even as the slow rollout leaves most people without any opportunity to get the vaccine for now, Dr. Anthony Fauci says it’s ‘quite possible’ that COVID-19 vaccines will become mandatory to attend school or travel outside the country

Meanwhile, Florida’s agriculture commissioner this week called on Governor Ron DeSantis to deploy the National Guard to assist the vaccination campaign, saying in a letter to the Republican governor that the effort had been ‘very chaotic’ so far. 

Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, Florida’s only statewide elected Democrat, said in the letter on Wednesday that there is a lack of ‘clear direction’ on vaccination procedures for healthcare workers.

‘Instead of efficient, centralized distribution management by the state of Florida, distribution has been left to hospitals and county health departments,’ Fried wrote. ‘While you characterize this as ‘cutting out the middle man,’ vulnerable residents are left without answers or clear direction from overwhelmed local agencies on when, where and how to receive the vaccine.’ 

The state’s…