Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
How It All Went Wrong: Bad Planning, Red Tape Blamed In Bumpy Rollout
The Washington Post: Vaccines Were A Chance To Redeem Failures In The U.S. Coronavirus Response. What Went Wrong?
The story of how this happened reflects schisms that have defined the U.S. response, with mistrust smoldering between career scientists and political appointees accountable during an election year to a president widely criticized for his response to the pandemic but who took credit on the stump for vaccine development and promised one would be ready “very soon.” The delayed and disjointed vaccine rollout is the product of poor coordination between the federal government and the 50 states and additional jurisdictions tasked with carrying out the most ambitious immunization campaign in history, likened by officials to the effort to turn back the Nazis in 1944. (Sun, Stanley-Becker, Stead Sellers, McGinley, Goldstein, Rowland and Johnson, 1/11)
Politico: Governors’ Red Tape Blamed As Vaccine Doses Pile Up
Governors face a growing outcry over inflexible vaccine policies that are now being blamed for leaving millions of doses to pile up in freezers — and some to land in the trash. Pharmacists and hospital leaders, scrambling to get the scarce Covid-19 vaccine doses into the arms of the willing, are begging state leaders not to tie their hands. They say a patchwork of Byzantine-like state regulations — and, in at least one case, the threat of monetary penalties for stepping out of line — have left the medical community paralyzed over what to do with extra supplies. (Luthi, Young and Colliver, 1/11)
Vaccinations are picking up —
Reuters: CDC Says 9 Million Americans Now Vaccinated As U.S. States Scramble
Nearly 9 million Americans had been given their first COVID-19 vaccination dose as of Monday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, as states scrambled to step up inoculations that have yet to slow the roaring pandemic. The 8,987,322 people who have been jabbed with the first of two shots, according to the CDC, represent less than one-third of the 25 million total doses distributed to states by the U.S. government. (Caspani, Whitcomb and Allen, 1/11)
