Race to vaccinate millions in U.S. off to slow, messy start

“We can’t just hand it out like candy,” McCarthy said.

Pasadena, California, is vaccinating its firefighters in groups of 50 after their two-day shifts are over so they can recuperate during their four days off. “We don’t want the majority of our workforce — if they do experience side effects — to be out all at the same time,” city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said.

In South Carolina, state lawmakers are questioning why the state has administered just 35,158 of the 112,125 Pfizer doses it had received by Wednesday. State Sen. Marlon Kimpson said officials told him that some front-line health care workers are declining to be vaccinated, while others are on vacation.

Hundreds of people wait in line Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020, at the STARS Complex in Fort Myers, Fla., to receive the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. [Photo: The News-Press via AP]

Lin Humphrey, a college professor whose 81-year-old mother lives with him in a high-rise apartment in Miami, said it took him about 80 calls to get someone on the phone at a Miami Beach hospital that began inoculating elderly people last week.

“It reminded me of the '80s where you had to call into a radio station to be the 10th caller to get concert tickets,” Humphrey said. “When I finally got through, I cried on the phone with the woman.”

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday set an ambitious goal of vaccinating 1 million residents in January — a task that he said would require outside cooperation and dramatically increased access to the shots.

Over the past few weeks, Trump administration health officials had talked about a goal of shipping enough vaccine by the end of the month to inoculate 20 million Americans. But it's unclear if the U.S. will reach that mark.

Army Gen. Gustave Perna, Operation Warp Speed’s chief operating officer, said Wednesday that 14 million doses had been shipped around the country so far. Tracking by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that as of Wednesday, nearly 2.8 million injections had been given.

Officials said there is a lag in reporting vaccinations, but they are still happening more slowly than expected. Perna predicted the pace would pick up next week.

“We agree that that number is lower than what we hoped for,” said Dr. Moncef Slaoui, Warp Speed’s chief scientist.

On Tuesday, President-elect Joe Biden said the Trump administration is “falling far behind" and vowed to ramp up the pace once he takes office on Jan. 20. In early December, Biden vowed to distribute 100 million shots in the first 100 days of his administration.

Jha said Biden's goal is ambitious but achievable.

“It's not going to be easy if what they pick up on Jan. 20 is an infrastructure that's not ready to execute on Day One," he said.

In Tennessee, health officials had hoped to reach a goal of dispensing 200,000 doses by the end of the year, but delays in shipments might prevent that from happening. Health officials said the state received 20,300 doses on Tuesday that had been expected to arrive last week.

“There’s just nothing we could have done about that," said Dr. Lisa Piercey, Tennessee’s health commissioner.