The United States could and should have done a better job of rolling out coronavirus vaccines, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said Wednesday.
Federal officials have been struggling to explain why, when they promised 20 million vaccines would have been given to people by the end of the year, only 5.3 million people have been vaccinated nearly a week into the New Year and fewer than 20 million vaccines have even been distributed.
"Clearly, no excuses. We should have gotten 20 distributed, and 20 into the arms of people -- by 20, I mean 20 million," Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Economic Club of Washington.
"I think we have to wait for the first couple of weeks in January to make any determination as to what's gone wrong, if anything," Fauci said.
He said that some of the delays may be because the Covid-19 vaccination program is new and has never been tried before, and it was also difficult to start something in the middle of the holiday season.
"Again, no excuses, but you can explain why you may not have gotten to the level you want. Now, not to make excuses, we should have done better. So, let me make that clear," Fauci said. "We should have done better, but I think we should wait until we get into maybe the second, or the third week in January, to see if we can now catch up with the original pace that was set."
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar blamed the holiday season for slowing the rollout of vaccines across the United States.
"Pfizer's vaccine was authorized and able to ship, I think it was December 14, and Moderna's was authorized and available to ship on December 21. Then you have of course Christmas and New Year's right there," Azar said in an Operation Warp Speed news briefing.
"So while we continue to ship, you do have just the natural human behavioral element of the holiday season there in terms of hospitals, pharmacies and other health care providers being able to line up individuals for vaccination," Azar said. "That's also a normal consequence."
Azar also blamed state leaders for strictly following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommended giving the first doses of vaccine to frontline health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities.
"I have encouraged our governors, and I will continue to do so, that if they are using all of the vaccine that is ordered -- that is allocated, ordered, distributed, shipped -- and they're getting it into health care providers' arms, every bit of it, that's great," Azar said.
"But if for some reason their distribution is struggling, and they're having vaccines sit in freezers, then by all means you ought to be opening up to people 70 and over, 65 and over, you ought to be making sure that the nursing home patients are getting vaccinated."
