Here are some significant developments:
The number of vaccinations across the United States crossed 3 million Thursday, only about one-seventh of the number of doses that federal officials had promised to deliver to Americans’ arms by the end of the year. Although authorities insist that lags in reporting mean the official tally is an undercount, the immunization campaign has nevertheless been marred by logistical delays as the nation experiences the most powerful surge of the pandemic so far.
The vaccines’ complicated rollout has relied on coordination between the federal government and beleaguered state and local health-care systems, with communication gaps and underfunded health departments contributing to the slowdown. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, on Wednesday said federal officials will “continue to make adjustments” to increase vaccinations.
Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb called on the government to increase the pace of vaccination, especially for people in nursing homes. Those long-term care facilities are logging more than 60,000 infections per week, he said, and recording a 20 percent fatality rate.
“I think we need a sense of urgency about this, and the new variant, I think, adds to that risk,” Gottlieb said Thursday on CNBC. “Because if we don’t get control of this epidemic wave more quickly — and the vaccine is a tool to do that — it creates more opportunity for this new variant to start spreading more widely.”
That concern was echoed by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who on Friday positioned himself as a prominent Republican critic of the Trump administration’s handling of vaccinations.
“That comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable,” he said in a statement.
Among other ideas, Romney proposed enlisting active and retired health-care workers not currently delivering care — such as veterinarians, combat medics and medical students — to administer vaccinations. Within each category of people used to prioritize inoculations, he suggested scheduling vaccinations according to birthdays.
“Public health professionals will easily point out the errors in this plan — so they should develop better alternatives based on experience, modeling and trial,” Romney added.
Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appeared to rule out one alternate approach on Friday, when he said he disagrees with the United Kingdom’s new vaccine distribution strategy. This week, Britain announced its plan to prioritize the first shot of its two two-dose vaccines, attempting to give as many people as possible at least partial immunity before administering the second dose.
Fauci told CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen that “I would not be in favor of that” and “we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.”
It’s a controversial strategy in large part because the approach hasn’t been tested in clinical trials. Carlos del Rio, a professor of medicine and global health at Emory University, tweeted his agreement with Fauci, writing, “Let’s implement what we know works.”
The debate over distribution plans comes as U.S. coronavirus-related hospitalizations set a record of more than 125,300 on Thursday — the fourth straight day that that measure reached a new high. Also Thursday, states reported 225,775 new cases of the virus, and deaths topped 3,000 for the third day in a row, according to The Washington Post’s tracking.
The seven-day average of new cases set records in Georgia, New York and Maine on Friday, while the average number of coronavirus-related deaths hit their highest points in California, Kansas and Virginia. Mississippi’s average death toll tied its record.
In the past week, California reported nearly 20 percent of the country’s new infections, the most by far of any state and a proportion that outstrips its share of the U.S. population.
Twenty-four hours after California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said, “Hope is on the horizon,” his state saw perhaps its darkest day yet. On Friday, officials recorded 535 deaths from the coronavirus, a one-day record that trails only those set by New York in mid-April.
California has now reported more than 25,000 deaths, the only state other than New York and Texas to pass that milestone. Experts fear things will only get worse.
The situation remains particularly dire in Los Angeles County, where the Los Angeles Times reports that morgues are overflowing, funeral homes are turning away families and hospitals are reaching their breaking points. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) predicted Thursday that the city’s “toughest and darkest days” lie ahead, as the surrounding county reports an average of more than 12,800 cases and 127 coronavirus-related deaths per day.
“Our health-care workers are stretched to the limit,” Garcetti told CNN. “We learned a lot, prepared a lot, have equipment, have a lot of the spaces now available, but we don’t have the people. And that is what’s devastating us.”
Hospitals are also under strain elsewhere in the country, including in Arizona, where the state’s health director said over 90 percent of ICU beds were occupied and more than half of those were housing covid-19 patients.
“As you take precautions against covid-19, consider whether you or someone you love might need one of those beds for a heart attack, stroke, serious injury or infection,” the director, Cara Christ, said in a video posted Thursday. “Wearing a mask, keeping your distance, washing your hands and taking other simple steps helps make sure there are beds for any medical emergency that Arizonans may face.”