CDC director: The U.S. is unsure how many COVID-19 vaccines it has

January 25, 2021: The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Sunday that the federal government does not know how much Covid-19 vaccine the nation has.

“I can’t tell you how many vaccines we have. I can’t tell it to you, governors and the state health officials,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told “Fox News” on Sunday.

“If they don’t know how many vaccines they’re getting in this week and the coming weeks, They can’t figure out how many sites to roll out, how many vaccinators that they need, and how many appointments to make for the public,” Walensky said.

In a dig at the Trump administration, Walensky said the challenges to be faced ahead could be identified by the lack of knowledge of vaccine supply.

The Biden administration has been pressurized repeatedly to know whether Biden’s goal to administer 100 million Covid-19 vaccine doses in the first 100 days will be reached or not.

The U.S. must vaccinate people faster, but the nation faces supply constraints, said Walensky.

 Production will increase after the first 100 days, Walensky said. The expected introduction of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine might also help ease supply problems.

“We are hoping that we’ll have more vaccines, and that will increase the pace at which we can do the vaccinations,” Walensky added.

White House chief of staff Ron Klain said the Trump administration has started the program but did not have a clear plan, due to which the nation is facing distribution problems.

Fauci said the 100 million injections would cover around 67 million people, some of whom will have received the required two doses while others will have received only one amount. The U.S. has administered nearly 22 million doses, far below federal targets.

“I would say we’ve been in a race all along,” Walensky said. “The more virus is there, the more virus that is replicating, the more likely that we are going to have mutations and variants.”