The US vaccinated 1 million people out of the target of 20 million for December

Just over 1 million people in the US have received their first dose of the Coronavirus Vaccine from Wednesday morning, a long way from the federal government’s goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans by the end of the year.

With two emergency Covid-19 vaccines approved, the biggest hurdle to ending the pandemic in the US is getting the doses to the roughly 331 million Americans across the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 1,008,025 shots were administered or more Wednesday at 9 a.m. ET.

That’s about 19 million doses, falling short of previous December projections, and officials have less than two weeks – roughly eight days – to try to fill that void. The US would have to vaccinate more than 2.1 million people a day by December 31 to reach its goal. Two vaccines – off Pfizer and Moderna – Have been approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration, and the US has shipped 9,465,725 doses nationwide, according to CDC data.

The CDC’s data on vaccine distribution comes from state, territorial and local health authorities, as well as from five federal agencies. As a result, there may be additional delays in reporting data from these locations.

The vaccines are viewed by investors and policymakers as a solution to getting the US economy back on its feet as the pandemic wreaks havoc, overwhelms hospitals and upsets businesses in every state. The US has the worst outbreak in the world, with more than 18.2 million cases and at least 322,849 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Earlier on Wednesday, the director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, who joined Dr. Anthony Fauci had received his first vaccine against Covid that he is hoping for Americans if the US government does not achieve its vaccination target by the end of this month. “I will understand that this is a logistical challenge of enormous proportions.”

“In all honesty, I think it’s pretty amazing that it’s been going as fast as it ever was. It’s only been 10 days since the FDA first approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine, and then a week later for Moderna,” Collins told CNN. “I think the sales effort went through [Operation] Warp speed and then working across the states is pretty amazing. “

Global health experts had said distributing the vaccines to around 331 million Americans within a few months could prove to be much more complicated and chaotic than originally thought. Not only do states and territories make enough doses, they also need enough needles, syringes, and bottles to vaccinate people. People also need training in the storage and administration of the vaccines. (Pfizer’s vaccine requires a storage temperature of minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit.)

Public health officials insist the vaccine rollout went smoothly overall, save for a few unfortunate glitches. The USA suffered his first hiccups last week when about 3,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine traveling to California and Alabama had to be quarantined and returned to the company after the vials somehow got too cold. It’s unclear why the temperature dropped, but Pfizer said in a statement that it was able to intercept the shipments and “seamlessly trigger subsequent delivery to these customers.”

States have also reported confusion over vaccination schedules. In the past few days, state officials said they had learned that their second shipment of Pfizer’s vaccine would be smaller than expected or delayed. Army General Gustave Perna, who oversees the logistics for President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed ​​vaccination program, apologized for the confusion last week and said it was a “planning mistake”.

Soumi Saha, pharmacist and vice president of advocacy for Premier, a consulting firm that works with thousands of hospitals and nursing homes, told CNBC last month that vaccine distribution was “whole new territory” for healthcare systems. “This is a brand new logistical challenge to distribute and get this vaccine to the right place while maintaining the integrity of the product,” she said.

Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist and professor at the University of Toronto, said the rapid expansion of vaccinations to pharmacies, hospitals and primary care networks was “extremely impressive.”

“It looks like one of the bigger hurdles to vaccination efforts in the US will be hesitation, while elsewhere in the world the hurdles will be access to vaccines,” he told CNBC on Wednesday.