Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining this week’s Operation Warp Speed briefing, the first of 2021.
To begin, I want to underscore what we’ve achieved so far. Having 20 million doses of vaccine available for jurisdictions to order by the end of 2020 was a historic achievement and a tribute to the success of Operation Warp Speed.
This week, we have allocated another 4.1 million doses for jurisdictions to order, and nearly 20 million doses total have now been physically distributed.
But we all know and agree that the ultimate goal is not vaccines in warehouses or freezers, but shots in arms, helping to protect American lives.
We’ve already seen the rate of vaccinations increase substantially in recent days, and in the coming weeks, we expect that pace to increase even more.
We knew that would be the case from the way that states drew up their plans in cooperation with CDC, but we’re not going to wait around and see.
We’ve been examining the challenges that might have slowed the ramp-up of administrations over the last several weeks, we’re taking immediate action, and we’re laying out ways for states to speed up administration even more.
First of all, we’ve announced an early launch of the federally arranged pharmacy partnership, which will eventually cover more than 40,000 pharmacy locations from 19 chains and associations across the country.
This partnership allows states to allocate vaccines directly to these partners, and these partners can then administer vaccines to particular groups, like those over a certain age or in certain occupations, and eventually to the general public.
The plan had been to ramp up this partnership over time, because vaccine supply would not be sufficient to spread across all of the pharmacy partners right away. But, to help give states as many options as possible for vaccine administration, we’re launching the program this week and states can choose particular partners to send vaccines to now.
These partners can provide rapid access to vaccines in settings that may be more convenient and efficient than partners they’ve used so far, like hospitals.
We know some states have already been allocating vaccines to pharmacies. This partnership offers a new easy option because we’ve already enrolled tens of thousands of pharmacies into it, and CDC is already sending out information to help states think through how best to use this partnership right now.
States can also accelerate vaccine administration by moving on to providing vaccinations to broader populations right now.
There is no reason that states need to complete, say, vaccinating all healthcare providers before opening up vaccinations to older Americans or other especially vulnerable populations.
I’ll quote what Dr. Messonnier said on this topic just recently: We “really hope that articulating these phases isn’t leading to unnecessary barriers. Don’t leave vaccines in the fridge. Don’t leave vaccine in the vial.”
Providing flexibility around these phases, rather than proposing heavy-handed penalties for vaccine administrators, is the best way to get more shots in arms faster.
I was just on the phone with Governor DeSantis of Florida this morning, talking about how we can further accelerate access. We would much rather see states move as quickly as possible and use every possible avenue to meet demand, as places like Florida are trying to do, than leave vaccines sitting in freezers.
It would be much better to move quickly and end up vaccinating some lower-priority people than to let vaccines sit around while states try to micromanage this process. Faster administration could save lives right now, which means we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I also want to reiterate that we’ve already provided considerable assistance to the states and other public health jurisdictions we’re working with: a federally created vaccination playbook, provided in September, that CDC has used to work with jurisdictions on their vaccination plans nearly every day since then; the kits with needles, syringes, swabs, and personal protective equipment needed to administer the vaccine; and $340 million for COVID-19 vaccine planning. Only a fraction of that $340 million in funding, I will note, has been drawn down by states.
In addition, jurisdictions can request specific assistance where necessary for administration, which could include FEMA or National Guard personnel.
We believe that’s not likely to be necessary, given the size of the workforce available in the private sector to provide immunizations, but it can be an option.
On top of that, we have billions more in funding for vaccine administration in the relief bill that the President signed last week.
CDC will initially award $3 billion to more than 60 jurisdictions, using a population-based formula as directed by Congress, and we are releasing more information today regarding these funds.
On the therapeutics side, I want to remind all Americans that we have authorized antibody treatments available that could help keep patients at high risk for severe disease out of the hospital.
We are working on more ways to help Americans access these treatments, including this week’s launch of a federally supported infusion facility in El Centro, California.
Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of doses that have been distributed and not yet used. If you test positive for COVID-19 and are over age 65 or have a co-morbidity that raises your risk of severe disease, you may be able to receive one of these treatments, which have been shown to reduce the likelihood you’ll be hospitalized with the disease.
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.
Remember the 3 Ws: wash your hands, watch your distance, wear your face coverings when you can’t watch your distance. And I’d like to add two more things: If you test positive and are at risk for severe disease, you should ask your doctor why you are not being given one of the FDA-authorized antibody therapies that may be available. And please, when a vaccine is available to you, go get a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine.
With that, I will turn things over to Dr. Slaoui to provide an update on scientific and manufacturing progress. Dr. Slaoui?
