Trump Declined Hundreds of Millions More Doses of Vaccine
Trump Administration Delayed Funding for Vaccine Distribution Even as It Delegated Process to States
States, Hospitals Faced Fractured Communications, Confusion, Supply and Staffing Shortages
States Already Reporting Increased Outreach From Biden Team
Three days into this administration, President Joe Biden has already begun to rectify the disaster left in the wake of the Trump Presidency. Signing a slew of executive orders to take on the worsening pandemic, Biden has robustly scaled up the federal government’s role in containing the crisis.
Several of these orders focused on one of the most pressing issues facing Americans: vaccine distribution. Despite that two life-saving vaccines have been available for over a month, the United States has struggled to get shots in arms as hospitals cancel appointments and states warn of dwindling supplies. The problems run deep: the Trump Administration effectively abdicated all responsibility for logistical planning, consigning the “last mile” of the process to overworked, underfunded state and local health departments.
- The Trump Administration Failed To Secure Enough Vaccine For Americans, Declining Between 100 Million And 500 Million Additional Doses From Pfizer. The original sin of the Trump Administration’s vaccine disaster was the failure to procure enough doses to protect Americans. The Trump Administration even declined an offer from Pfizer to reserve between 100 million and 500 million additional doses of their vaccine, allowing other countries to order up the doses instead.
- The Trump Administration Delegated The “Last Mile” Of Distribution To States, Even As They Were Deprived Of Funding For Distribution. Then, the Trump Administration pushed the logistical planning for the vaccine’s distribution to overworked, underfunded state and local health departments, delegating them the “last mile” of distribution. States and health officials warned the Trump Administration that they needed more than $8 billion in funding to plan for the distribution of the vaccine, but until a coronavirus relief package was passed in late December, they had received only $340 million. The additional funding could take weeks to disseminate.
- Staff That Should Be Helping Administer Vaccines Are Instead Dealing With A Crush Of Patients. Donald Trump failed to contain the pandemic, flouting public health recommendations and putting Americans at risk. Thanks to his actions, the vaccine roll out began during a winter surge of the virus — the worst wave to date. As well over 200,000 new infections and thousands of new deaths were reported daily, the frontline workers who would usually be responsible for putting shots in arms were instead treating a crush of patients in hospitals.
- Now, Americans Are Facing A Disjointed Rollout, Rampant Miscommunication, Supply Shortages, And Confusion. The result of this abdication of responsibility has been a disjointed rollout plagued with supply shortages, miscommunication, and general confusion. There is fractured communication between the federal government, states, and local officials, supply shortages are intensifying in some regions, while doses are wasted or in storage in others.
- Some States Are Not Ordering Full Allocations, Or Withholding Doses, Amid Uncertainty And Vaccine Hesitancy. Some states are not ordering all of the doses they’ve been allotted, and not administering those that they have. In some cases, officials are uncertain about supply; in others, they are concerned about vaccine hesitancy (a phenomenon likely made worse by Donald Trump’s relentless attacks on science).
- The Trump Administration System For Communicating Allotments Only Allowed States To View Allocations One Week At A Time, And Even Then Showed Fluctuating Projections. The Trump Administration’s system for communicating vaccine allotments to states only allowed officials to view their allocations a week at a time, the available quantities changing regularly. Then, once states find out how much vaccine they were allotted, they only had two days to determine how to distribute those doses to vaccination sites. This system has created chaos for states on the ground trying to set up appointments and registration systems, and made it hard for officials to plan for second doses. Americans are seeing this problem manifest in the form of cancelled appointments.
- Without Federal Support, Some States Lack Materials To Store The Vaccine. Without federal support to fortify logistics and manage the cold-chain, a major issue plaguing some states and localities is the cold-storage requirements for some of the vaccines. Macdonald M. DuBose, the chairman of the South Carolina Medical Association, has flagged cold-storage capacity as one of the issues holding up South Carolina’s roll out of the vaccine: few providers have the storage capacity to keep the Pfizer shot at the right temperature. South Carolina is among the states where the fewest doses have been distributed per capita.
- Trump Administration Partnerships With CVS And Walgreens Has Delayed Roll Out As The Pharmacies Are Slow To Administer Shots In Some Areas. The Trump Administration developed federal partnerships with Walgreens and CVS to administer shots in long-term care facilities — but those partnerships have yet to bear fruit as the pharmacies have been slow to administer shots in some places. Maine even redirected doses from Walgreens to local hospitals amid the delay.
- The Trump Administration Was Unclear About Whether States Should Withhold Doses, And Promised To Release A “Reserve” That Was Already Depleted. The Trump Administration was not clear about whether or not states should maintain a reserve of doses to provide second shots to patients; meanwhile, the federal government’s own “reserve” was depleted even as the Trump Administration widened eligibility for the vaccine and implied states would be flooded with supply. Public health experts are blaming the Trump Administration’s push to expand eligibility for vaccine shortages across the country.
- There Is General Confusion About Whether There Are Too Many Doses Of The Vaccine, Or Not Enough. There is general confusion about whether there are too many doses of the vaccine, or not enough. Under the Trump Administration’s guidelines, some hospitals threw out surplus doses rather than administer them to people who were not in priority groups, and in some states doses languish on pharmacy shelves or in warehouses. But in other parts of the country, state officials are warning that supply shortages are the key obstacle in ramping up vaccination efforts.
- But States Have Already Reported Increased Outreach From The Biden Administration. Some state officials have reported that they have already seen more outreach from the federal government in 24 hours of the Biden Administration, including offers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to set up and staff vaccination sites.
- Despite Immediate Changes Made By The Biden Team, The United States Is Behind In Vaccine Distribution. But despite the immediate improvements made by the Biden Administration — in terms of outreach to states and Americans, enhanced manufacturing, and robust federal support — the failures of the Trump Administration have set Americans far behind. Not only are we still short of the 20 million doses that Trump promised by the end of 2020; major disparities are emerging in the vaccine distribution process. White Americans are reportedly being vaccinated at significantly higher rates than Black Americans, even as Black Americans continue to be disproportionately impacted by the virus.