The United States might not be prepared to handle the COVID-19 vaccine, especially when it comes to distribution on a massive scale, according to Kaiser Health News.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released a new memo that told states to prepare for a potential COVID-19 vaccine by Oct. 1.
- But public health departments said they have a lack of staff, money and tools to help people understand the vaccine and then distribute it — especially to 330 million people.
And these experts worry they don’t know when they’ll get federal aid to help with it.
- “There is a tremendous amount of work to be done to be prepared for this vaccination program and it will not be complete by Nov. 1. States will need more financial resources than they have now,” said Dr. Kelly Moore, associate director of immunization education at the Immunization Action Coalition.
- “States are anxious to receive those funds as soon as possible, so they can do what they need to be prepared,” Moore said. “We can’t assume they can take existing funding and attempt the largest vaccination campaign in history.”
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Operation Warp Speed’s Paul Mango told Kaiser Health News there won’t be 300 million doses available at once. It will take time to bring them out.
- “We’re not going to have 300 million doses all at once. We believe we are maximizing our probability of success of having tens of millions of doses of vaccines by January 2021, which is our goal.”