(Reuters) - When the U.S. government began shipping COVID-19 vaccines in December, state health providers could not administer shots fast enough to keep pace with deliveries and millions of doses sat waiting for arms.
Two months later, the situation has reversed. Supply constraints are slowing ambitious vaccination programs, as massive sites capable of putting shots into thousands of arms daily in states including New York, California, Florida and Texas, as well as hospitals and pharmacies, beg for more doses.
Nearly a dozen state and local officials told Reuters they could vaccinate up to four times more people, but federal vaccine shipments remain frustratingly small.
Two months into the vaccine rollout, most states have received enough doses to vaccinate fewer than 10% of their residents. With deliveries based on population, most states receive fewer than a 100,000 doses per week of the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech SE and Moderna Inc vaccines that both require two shots.
States and localities “have gotten themselves together ... and they can handle a lot more doses,” said Claire Hannan, director of the Association of Immunization Managers, a trade group for local public health departments. “They just need more supply.”
Health officials say the stakes are higher than ever as more contagious variants of the coronavirus spread.
The Biden administration has said it will continue to increase dose allocations and remains on track to make shots available to all Americans by late summer....
