White House says COVID-19 vaccine shipments delayed by storm still arriving this week
States that have seen delays in receiving COVID-19 vaccines due to fierce winter storms should still get their shipments this week, weather permitting, the White House said Wednesday.
“Any shipments that are impacted will likely deliver 24-48 hours later than originally scheduled, weather dependent,” a White House official told McClatchy.
Over 3 million people are without power in Texas, and Midwestern states such as Kansas and Missouri have initiated rolling blackouts to handle the surge in demand for electricity due to plunging temperatures.
The storms have forced the temporary closure of vaccination sites across the country, frustrating the Biden administration’s plans for a slow but steady ramp-up of the program each week since taking office.
The White House on Wednesday released a “vaccination progress report” showing the seven-day average of doses administered each day had nearly doubled since Jan. 20, from 900,000 vaccines administered per day to 1.7 million.
An official with the Texas Department of State Health Services said that the federal government had sent roughly 35,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine to North Texas providers, but that the shipments will ultimately depend on safety conditions.
“No Moderna doses have shipped due to the weather,” said Douglas Loveday, a press officer at the Texas health department. “Local providers have postponed vaccine clinics where it is too dangerous for people to drive. Postponed vaccinations will resume as soon as it is safe.”
Kansas’ health department said the federal government had informed them of a likely delay. “We are dependent to a degree on Mother Nature and we’ll catch it up,” Lee Norman, director of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said during a media briefing Tuesday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services are working with vaccine manufacturers, distributors and states “to deliver vaccines safely,” the White House official said when asked what the administration was doing to ensure that vaccines are properly stored in locations that have lost power.
Some states still experiencing blackouts are nevertheless pushing to open vaccination sites as soon as Thursday, such as in Kentucky, where Gov. Andy Beshear said he plans to do “everything in our power to keep our regional sites open these next few days.”
President Joe Biden spoke by phone on Tuesday with Beshear, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, on the “horrific conditions” created by storms that left tens of millions without power.
“The weather’s having an impact, it’s having an impact on distribution and deliveries,” Jeff Zients, head of the White House coronavirus response team, told reporters Wednesday. “People are working as hard as they can given the importance of getting the vaccines to the states and to providers. But there is an impact on deliveries.”
“There are certain parts of the country, Texas being one of them, where vaccination sites are understandably closed, and what we’re encouraging governors and other partners to do is to extend hours once they are able to reopen,” Zients said.
“We want to make sure as we’ve lost some time in some states for people to get needles in arms, that our partners do all they can to make up that lost ground consistent with distributing the vaccine as efficiently and equitably as possible,” he said.
Eleanor Dearman of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Jonathan Shorman of the Kansas City Star and Daniel Desrochers of the Lexington Herald-Leader contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 5:30 PM with the headline "White House says COVID-19 vaccine shipments delayed by storm still arriving this week."
