NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – The new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday that the U.S. doesn’t have “as many doses as we’d like” of the COVID vaccine for New York and other states.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky told anchor Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that limited vaccine supply will continue to be a challenge in the weeks ahead as President Joe Biden aims for at least 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days.
“We don’t have as many doses as we would like now for states like New York, for other states that are claiming to have run out of vaccine,” Walensky said.
“I think that the supply is probably going to be the most limiting constraint early on, and we’re really hoping that after that first 100 days, we’ll have much more production,” Walensky said. “We’re really hoping we’ll have more vaccine and that will increase the pace at which we can do the vaccinations.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned Friday that the state was exhausting its current supply of the vaccine, with the number of New Yorkers eligible far exceeding doses being sent by the federal government.
“We run out of allocation today,” Cuomo said at his Friday briefing. “The week 1 to 5 allocation will be exhausted by the end of the day Friday, may already be exhausted, frankly.”
The governor said New York state was going “week to week” on vaccines, with about 250,000 doses sent for the week ahead even as some 7 million New Yorkers are now eligible.