About 6 million COVID-19 vaccines delayed by winter storms will be delivered to states by midweek, Andy Slavitt, the White House senior adviser for COVID-19 response, said Feb. 22.
The doses were delayed this week due to winter weather that affected vaccine shipments in all 50 states at multiple points in the supply chain. Mr. Slavitt originally said all of the doses would be delivered by the end of the week, but thanks to members of the military and workers at multiple distribution companies, all of the doses should be delivered by midweek, he said.
"McKesson ran extended shifts Saturday and Sunday to pack vaccines, and members of the military joined them in their efforts," Mr. Slavitt said. "Seventy McKesson employees volunteered to work 1 a.m. shifts Saturday night, Sunday morning, to prepare shipments to meet an 11 a.m. transit deadline. On Sunday, UPS extended its on-site trailer time at the McKesson facility in Kentucky to allow them to pack hundreds of thousands more doses. Thanks to that and many more, those efforts, today alone, we plan to deliver 7 million doses."
He said the 7 million doses are a combination of the ones that were delayed by the storms and those that were already scheduled to be sent to states Feb. 22.
"But delivering doses to administration sites is, as we know, only the first step. Sites around the country have a significant job ahead of them to quickly vaccinate the public. It will take some time for those sites to catch up," Mr. Slavitt added.
Some vaccination sites in Texas, where the winter storms hit hardest, are still closed, according to The Hill. Mr. Slavitt said Texas' seven-day average of doses administered decreased 31 percent in the last week.