(NBC) – As the scramble to get the country vaccinated continues there are new deals and new players getting involved.
President Biden said the U.S. is now on track to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of July. But with so many areas still having vaccine supply shortages, there is growing concern about who gets the shots first.
Pick any state and you’ll hear the same complaint: people who are supposed to be able to get a vaccine appointment can’t.
During a visit to the National Institute of Health Thursday, President Biden said his administration has focused on fixing a rocky vaccine rollout “left” By the previous administration
Helping to establish more mass vaccination sites and enlisting military personnel and healthcare veterans to put shots in arms.
President Biden said, “We’re now allowing retired doctors and nurses to come back and administer shots. We’ve put hundreds of new vaccinators in the field and are lining up thousands more.”
Biden now says the deals to add an extra 200 million doses 100 million each from Moderna and Pfizer have been finalized.
And both companies say they will also deliver a previously promised order of 100 million doses by the end of May — a month earlier than expected!
Still, at the moment, the most critical concern nationwide remains the limited supply.
Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan says he’ll bring it up during a white house meeting Friday.
It comes after he joined the governor of Virginia and D.C.’s mayor in calling for the federal government to directly supply vaccines to the thousands of essential federal workers who live in the capital region.
On the West Coast, a mass vaccination site at Dodgers Stadium has closed for several days after Los Angeles ran out of its Moderna vaccine.
So far about 35 million Americans have been vaccinated starting Friday retail pharmacy chains will join the effort.
In fact, big names like Walgreens, CVS, Costco, Publix, and Kroger’s are all signing up to start putting shots in arms.
It’s going to start out slowly and then grow over the course of the coming weeks and months but this is all part of the effort to get vaccinations into local neighborhoods as well.
© 2024 KOBI-TV NBC5. All rights reserved unless otherwise stated.