Biden Administration Cautions Providers To Not Hold Vaccine Doses Back
Photo Credit: Tang Ming Tung/Getty Images
By Bless Bull / February 1, 2021
On Monday, Biden administration indicated that health care providers could be hoarding Covid-19 vaccine doses. Providers could be doing this for second shots that could have been administered for the first dose, and that this “should not happen.”
White House Covid-19 senior advisor Andy Slavitt spoke about the issue at Monday’s virtual press briefing.
“We believe that some health care providers are regularly holding back doses that are intended as first doses, and instead keeping them in reserve for second doses for patients. We want to be clear that we understand why health care providers have done that, but that it does not need to happen, and should not happen,”
The lack of prediction about supply by health care providers, needs to stop. However, Slavitt says the “efficiency of doses being administered will steadily improve.”
“On January 20th, states had administered 46% of their inventory. Today, that number is 62%. We are focused on this every hour of every day,” Slavitt said.
CNN states,”He suggested that in some cases, patients’ appointments for a first dose are being canceled and pressed the urgency in getting the first doses out as quickly as possible.” The administration’s move last week to give a three-week window in vaccine shipping plans was meant to diminish concerns of the second doses could be held back.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden and director of the National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases, requested on Monday that people should get vaccinated against Covid-19 when it’s their turn.
“You need to get vaccinated when it becomes available as quickly and as expeditiously as possible,” Fauci stated during the White House briefing, alongside stating that viruses cannot mutate if they don’t duplicate. “You stop their replication by vaccinating widely,” Fauci said. “When the vaccine becomes available to you, please get vaccinated.”