January 18, 2021 – Despite HHS Secretary Alex Azar’s announcement last week that the federal government would begin releasing coronavirus vaccine doses that had been held in reserve for second shots, no such reserve existed, according to state and federal officials briefed on distribution plans.
The Trump administration had already begun shipping out what was available, starting at the end of December, taking second doses for the two-dose regimen directly off the manufacturing line, according to the Washington Post.
Now, health and state officials across the country who had anticipated their extremely limited vaccine supply as much as doubling beginning next week are confronting the reality that their allocations will remain largely flat.
Health officials in some cities and states were informed in recent days about the reality of the situation, while others were still in the dark as late as Friday.
Because both of the vaccines authorized for emergency use in the United States are two-dose regimens, the Trump administration’s initial policy was to hold back second doses to protect against manufacturing disruptions.
But that approach shifted in recent weeks, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. Operation Warp Speed, which is overseeing vaccine distribution, stopped stockpiling second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the end of last year, those officials were told. Shipping of the last reserve doses of Moderna’s supply began over the weekend.
The shift, in both cases, had to do with increased confidence in the supply chain, so Operation Warp Speed leaders felt they could reliably anticipate the availability of doses for booster shots — required three weeks later in the case of the Pfizer-BioNTech product and four weeks later under Moderna’s protocol.
But it also meant there was no stockpile of second doses waiting to be shipped, as Trump administration officials suggested this week. Azar, at a briefing Tuesday, said, “Because we now have a consistent pace of production, we can now ship all of the doses that had been held in physical reserve.” He explained the decision as part of the “next phase” of the nation’s vaccination campaign…