Health and Human Services Alex Azar on Monday insisted the rollout of the nation's coronavirus vaccines remain on track, after criticism last week that only 2 million people had been vaccinated by the end of the year, a number far below government goal of 20 million vaccinations.
"We said our goal was to have 20 million first doses available in the month of December," Azar said on ABC's "Good Morning America." "Those are available, but there’s a lag between doses being available, them being ordered by the providers in the states, shipping, and then eventual vaccination, especially when you have Christmas and New Year’s in the middle.”
He also said he's surprised "there haven't been more glitches" in the "largest vaccination campaign in the history of the United States.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4.28 million vaccines had been given by Saturday, out of just over 13 million doses that have been distributed.
Azar said the numbers are "on track" and that there has been a "rapid uptick" of vaccinations in the past 72 hours.
There has also been some discussion about cutting doses of the vaccine to ensure more supply, including only giving a half dose or making sure everyone has one dose of the vaccine before being concerned about a second dose, but the available data does not support that, said Azar.
"If different data is generated supporting different dosing schedules and the FDA approves it, that's what we'll do," said Azar. "We'll stick with the data we've got. In terms of doing the first dose without a second dose available, that's just not on the label. That's not what the data supports, knowing you won't have a second dose."
Meanwhile, the information could be available about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which will be a single-dose education, as well as others soon, said Azar.
The growing COVID cases in the United States are pushing the need for the vaccine clinical trials, and "we could see data any time now" for candidates headed to the Food and Drug Administration for review, said Azar.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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