Operation Warp Speed officials acknowledged that the country's COVID-19 vaccine distribution effort has gotten off to a slower start than they expected and promised to expedite the process during a Dec. 30 news conference.
During the news conference, Operation Warp Speed officials said only 2.1 million of the more than 14 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines distributed across the U.S. had been administered. The statistic was drawn from a CDC dashboard, and it is likely an underestimate of the actual number of COVID-19 vaccines administered in the country due to lags in data reporting, according to the New York Times.
"We agree that that number is lower than what we hoped for," Moncef Slaoui, PhD, the head of Operation Warp Speed, said during the news conference. "We know that it should be better, and we're working hard to make it better."
U.S. Army Gen. Gustave Perna, Operation Warp Speed's logistics head, attributed the slow start to data reporting lags, delayed uptake due to the holidays and winter weather and facilities handling the learning curve of how to store and distribute the vaccines.