Finger-pointing abounds as states get fewer vaccines than planned

Enlarge / Operation Warp Speed hits a speed bump. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

As we're waiting for word on the authorization of a second vaccine for use in the US, glitches have been striking the distribution of the first through the federal government's "Operation Warp Speed." This week, the US saw the first use of the vaccine developed by a Pfizer/BioNTech collaboration. But immediately afterward, many states started saying that orders for shipments in the ensuing weeks were being cut. After some in the federal government had indicated that the problem might be in production, Pfizer issued a statement indicating that it had doses in its warehouse ready to ship out but no indication of where to ship them to.

All in all, it's about what you'd expect in the first weeks of a massive undertaking like this.

State of denial

One of the first states to report problems was Illinois, where its governor, J.B. Pritzker, said that it had indications it would only be receiving half the expected doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine next week. Since then, over a dozen states have indicated that they'll be receiving fewer doses than planned in the second week (this article seems to have a fairly comprehensive list).

Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments