Only 4 weeks into our launch, we’ve gained confidence in the integrity of our distribution system, which has now successfully delivered to over 14,000 locations, essentially without a hitch. Over the last several days, we’ve averaged around 700,000 reported vaccinations each day, and we are on track to hit 1 million per day in a week to ten days’ time. In total, we have more than 9 million first vaccinations already given, far more than any Western country. By the end of next week, 95 percent of long-term-care facilities will have had their first visit with vaccine doses.
Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining this week's Operation Warp Speed briefing.
I want to begin by providing some context on how far we've come, and how that informs the next stage of the vaccination program we're announcing today.
Through Operation Warp Speed, we've supported the development of six candidate vaccines. Two have been shown to be safe and incredibly effective within record time, leading to their authorization by FDA just last month. We've seen substantial rises in Americans' confidence in these vaccines and interest in taking them.
We are now at an important juncture in the vaccine program, where we're ready for a transition that we outlined last September in the vaccine playbook we sent to states.
That shift occurs as supply expands to meet demand, allowing us to expand the scope of people recommended to receive the vaccine and expand the delivery sites used.
We have achieved several milestones, several triggers, that brought us to this point.
Nearly 38 million total doses of vaccine to date, including about 25 million first doses, have been made available for states to order against, with more becoming available this week.
The doses allocated exceeds the priority populations in group 1A, including front line health care workers and seniors living in long-term-care facilities, which means that supply now exceeds demand from those groups.
Only 4 weeks into our launch, we've gained confidence in the integrity of our distribution system, which has now successfully delivered to over 14,000 locations, essentially without a hitch.
Over the last several days, we've averaged around 700,000 reported vaccinations each day, and we are on track to hit 1 million per day in a week to ten days' time. In total, we have more than 9 million first vaccinations already given, far more than any Western country. By the end of next week, 95 percent of long-term-care facilities will have had their first visit with vaccine doses.
All of this means it's time to move onto the next phase of the vaccination campaign, as we had planned to do when the data showed we could.
This next phase reflects the urgency of the situation we face: Every vaccine dose that is sitting in a warehouse rather than going into an arm could mean one more life lost or one more hospital bed occupied.
The next phase has several components.
First, we're expanding the groups getting vaccinated, because state restrictions on eligibility have obstructed speed and accessibility of administration.
Second, we're telling states to expand the channels and access points for administering vaccines, and we're helping them do so.
Third, we are releasing the entire supply we have for order by states, rather than holding second doses in physical reserve.
Fourth, we are announcing a forthcoming change to how we allocate doses in order to encourage states to support rapid vaccination and focus on the most vulnerable.
To the first point about expanded eligibility, we are telling states today that they should open vaccinations to all of their most vulnerable people.
That is the most effective way to save lives now, and some states' heavy-handed micromanagement of this process has stood in the way of vaccines' reaching a broader swath of the vulnerable population more quickly.
Specifically, as Dr. Redfield will discuss, we are telling states they should open vaccinations to all people age 65 and over, and all people under age 65 with a co-morbidity, with some form of medical documentation, as defined by governors.
Leaders in some states have forged ahead with steps like this in very diverse settings and demonstrated real success—I'll just mention a couple like Governor Lamont in Connecticut and Governor Justice in West Virginia.
Expanding eligibility to all of the vulnerable is the fastest way to protect the vulnerable. It's simply much easier to manage allocating vaccines and appointments to everyone over 65 rather than narrower, more complex categories, and it enables states to use much more diverse administration channels.
There was never a reason that states needed to complete vaccinating all healthcare providers before opening vaccinations to older Americans and other vulnerable populations. States should not be waiting to complete 1A priorities before proceeding to broader categories of eligibility.
Think of it like boarding an airplane: You might have a sequential order in which you board people, but you don't wait until literally every person from a group has boarded before moving onto the next. You have to keep the process moving. Imagine if you fined gate agents for boarding people out of order—you'd be standing at the gate for hours.
Of course, moving on from an initial phase of, say, healthcare workers before everyone is vaccinated is not declaring victory for that category.
States should continue working to support vaccinations of those populations. But moving on to broader populations when supply meets demand was always part of the recommendations that CDC had provided to states.
Second, we are telling states to open up more channels for administration and helping them do so. Hospitals made sense as the early distribution sites, when the focus was on healthcare workers, but they are not where most Americans go to get vaccines. States should move on to pharmacies, community health centers, and mass vaccination sites as desired or needed.
To support that work, last week, we announced that states could start using pharmacies enrolled through our federal partnership with 19 pharmacy chains and associations. General Perna, Dr. Redfield, and some pharmacy leaders held a briefing for governors on this topic last Thursday.
This federal partnership allows states to allocate vaccines directly to these partners, and these partners can then administer vaccines to particular groups and eventually to the general public.
These pharmacy partners handle the administrative tasks such as scheduling appointments and reporting vaccinations. States can and should choose the most strategically placed pharmacy partners to send vaccines to now.
We're also activating our federally qualified community health centers for vaccination. Some of these community health centers are already being utilized by state plans, but every state should be using them. Community health centers have more than 13,000 delivery sites across America, and they have both particularly convenient locations and strong connections in low-income and minority communities.
Further, if states wish to set up mass-vaccination sites, we stand ready to help, both through CDC guidance and other support, including deploying personnel to assist with technical expertise and setup. We're here to work with them. States have ample funding, including $3 billion more on the way, to support such efforts.
Third, we are now making the full reserve of doses we have available for order. We are 100 percent committed to ensuring a second dose is available for every American who receives a first dose. Let me repeat that: our approach continues to ensure that there will be a second dose available for someone who gets a first dose of vaccine.
Based on the science and evidence we have, it is imperative that people receive their second doses on time—that's what the science says, and ignoring that would be reckless.
But we had always planned to move to a more advanced phase of how we manage this, once we had confidence in our supply chains. That is the key trigger we needed to see.
Because we now have a consistent pace of production, we can now ship all of the doses that had been held in physical reserve, with second doses being supplied by doses coming off of manufacturing lines with quality control.
Going forward, each week, doses available will be released to first cover the needed second doses and then cover additional first vaccinations.
Finally, effective two weeks from now, we are changing how we allocate first doses among the states, in order to ensure doses are being put to use and put to use for the most vulnerable. We will be allocating them based on the pace of administration as reported by states and by the size of the 65 and over population in each state.
We're giving states two weeks' notice of this shift to give them the time necessary to plan and to improve their reporting if they think their data is faulty.
This new system gives states a strong incentive to ensure that all vaccinations are being promptly reported, which they're currently not, and it gives states a strong incentive to ensure doses are going to work protecting people, rather than sitting on shelves or in freezers. With the case counts we face now, there is absolutely no time to waste: We need doses going to where they'll be administered quickly, and where they'll protect the most vulnerable.
Finally, as we face rising case counts in a number of parts of the country, we need all Americans to keep up the same public health measures we've been recommending throughout this crisis. Hope is here in the form of vaccines; we just have to keep our guard up for a bit longer.
I want to add one more key message to our recommendations of washing your hands, watching your distance, and wearing your face coverings when you can't watch your distance. If you test positive and are at risk for severe disease—meaning you're over 65 or have a comorbidity—you should be asking your doctor or healthcare provider why you are not being given one of the FDA-authorized antibody therapies that are in ready supply.
We have products sitting on the shelves that can help keep people out of the hospital. That is just as unacceptable as vaccines sitting on shelves unused. People in the appropriate categories should be asking their doctors or healthcare providers why they aren't being offered these antibody therapies.
With that, I will hand things over to Dr. Redfield, our CDC director. Dr. Redfield?
