U.S. vaccinations short of 'Warp Speed' target for 2020

 

• With only two days remaining in 2020, the U.S. will likely fall short of its goal to vaccinate 20M Americans by the year's end.
• Operation Warp Speed planned to provide 40M doses (each vaccine requires two shots) between Pfizer-BioNTech (PFE, BNTX) and Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), but according to the latest figures from the CDC, just more than 11.4M doses had been distributed since Dec. 13 and only about 2.1M had been administered (the large variance is partly due to a lag in reporting).
• What's going on? COVID-19 vaccine czar, Moncef Slaoui, acknowledged last week that the ramp-up of immunizations "is slower than we thought it would be," while U.S. Army Gen. Gustave Perna, who oversees logistics for Operation Warp Speed, repeatedly apologized after some state officials reported cuts to their allocations. The launch of the federal government's partnership with major pharmacy chains like CVS (NYSE:CVS) and Walgreens (NASDAQ:WBA), which will be tasked with vaccinating long-term care residents, is also pending.
• "I believe that as we get into January, we are going to see an increase in the momentum," Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN, adding that he hopes the push will be enough to "catch up to the projected pace that we had spoken about a month or two ago."
• "The Trump administration’s plan to distribute vaccines is falling behind, far behind," President-elect Joe Biden added at news briefing. He said his administration would "move heaven and earth" to accelerate distribution once he takes office on Jan. 20.
• The situation is even more imperative after the U.S. confirmed the first case of a new and potentially more infectious strain of COVID-19 recently discovered in U.K. The individual is a male in his 20s, who is currently in isolation in Elbert County, Colorado, but does not have a travel history.
• In other coronavirus news, a vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) was just authorized for emergency use in the U.K., though Moncef Slaoui and others in the U.S. have expressed concern over the age groups in the trial.
• https://seekingalpha.com/news/3647820-u-s-vaccinations-far-short-of-warp-speed-target-for-2020