‘I Want To Feel Safe Again’: Americans Lament Slow Pace of US COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout
Jerry Shapiro, a 78-year-old pharmacist from Los Angeles, is at the top of the list of Californians now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, but more than a month after the state began inoculations, he has yet to receive…
Jerry Shapiro, a 78-year-old pharmacist from Los Angeles, is at the top of the list of Californians now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, but more than a month after the state began inoculations, he has yet to receive one.
Shapiro said he has spent hours calling multiple health agencies and making fruitless computer searches, an experience familiar to many people across the United States, as the days-old administration of President Joe Biden races to bring the country’s slow, chaotic vaccine rollout up to speed.
“Why not make it easy?” asked Shapiro, who is also concerned about his wife because of medical conditions that would make her particularly vulnerable to the virus. “Have it in your neighborhood. Set up an appointment, get your shot and be done.”
The United States is the nation hardest-hit by COVID-19, with 24.51 million cases and 409,987 deaths by early Friday morning. More than 4,000 Americans died of the disease on Thursday for the second day in a row.
Even so, vaccine rollout, which the administration of former President Donald Trump left to the states to carry out without a federal blueprint or sufficient funding, has proven to be choppy.
From California, where distribution has varied from county to county, to New York where the largest city in the nation is running low on supply, states and healthcare providers have struggled to acquire, store and distribute vaccines.
“We’re burning through our supply,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio posted on Twitter on Friday. “We need more doses IMMEDIATELY so we can protect the most vulnerable residents in our city. We need more doses so we can fight back.”
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said just 67% of healthcare workers in New York have received a vaccine dose and he warned that if the federal government does not find a way to quickly ramp up production, everyone would suffer.
“The hospital workers are the people who, if they get sick, the hospital capacity will collapse,” Cuomo said at a news conference. “If the hospital capacity collapses, we have to close the economy.”
In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy said the state’s vaccination program had managed to get 70% of its vaccine supply into people’s arms, but that a federal program within the state to help nursing home residents had distributed only 10% of its supply.