Eight Democratic governors are demanding that the federal government release doses of the coronavirus vaccine that have been withheld for a second round of inoculations, even though several of the states involved have large stockpiles of unused vaccine doses.
Democrats begging for more vaccine
One of the states, New York, has seen hundreds of vaccine doses destroyed due to rigid guidelines limiting who can receive the vaccine. Kansas, another state whose governor signed the letter, is 48th out of 50 in terms of administering doses it was allocated, having used up just 19% of its stockpile.
Despite those struggles, the Democrats said that the federal government’s “failure” to distribute more vaccine doses was “unconscionable and unacceptable.”
“We demand that the federal government begin distributing these reserved doses to states immediately,” the governors wrote to Alex Azar, the secretary of Health and Human Services, and Gen. Gustave Perna, who is overseeing logistics for the federal government’s vaccine program.
The governors of California, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Washington also signed the letter. The federal government has withheld half of the doses manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna in order to provide a second round of inoculations for people who have already received the vaccine.
There has been a growing push amid a slower-than-expected vaccine rollout to release the second round of doses in order to get the vaccine into the arms of more people. President-elect Joe Biden plans to release all of the available doses from the stockpile, in a break with the Trump administration’s policy of holding half of doses in reserve.
“When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel better… but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think it is.” -Dr. Fauci, March 2020
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) January 27, 2021
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According to The New York Times, the Empire State has used 31% of its available doses, making it the 19th most efficient state in the union. The other states whose governors signed the letter rank from between 24th (Illinois) to 48th (Kansas) in terms of vaccine usage.
California and Michigan, whose governors have been among the staunchest critics of the Trump administration’s coronavirus policies, rank 39th and 44th respectively in terms of using their vaccine stockpiles, according to The Times’ data.
North Dakota, West Virginia and South Dakota, the top three states in terms of vaccine administration, have used more than 50% of their doses. New York’s vaccination struggles have received perhaps the most attention of any state, thanks in part to a high-profile feud between Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio.
