White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki predicted that the coronavirus vaccine distribution effort that’s been delayed by severe weather across Texas and other states will “rapidly catch up this week” during a Sunday morning appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”
Mass power outages caused by winter storms have affected freezers needed to keep vaccines at cold temperatures and caused delays in the distribution of over 6 million doses across the U.S.
“Let me ask you about those 6 million doses that have been delayed because of the weather, do you have any update?” asked ABC’s Jon Karl. “What’s the plan for getting them out? Have you already been able to distribute some of them?”
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“We have, and you know, we knew, we can’t control mother nature, no one can, but we can certainly contingency plan, and what our team has been doing and preparing to do is engage with and work with the postal service, work with FedEx and others to get those doses out to vaccination centers, to communities as quickly as they can handle them,” Psaki responded.
“Because of course, they need to be at a level of refrigeration, we’ve been able to get 2 million of those 6 million doses out,” she continued. “We expect to rapidly catch up this week, fill that backlog, make sure they are out to communities, and also meet our deadlines and our timelines of the doses that are due to go out this upcoming week.” (RELATED: Biden Administration Announces ‘Road Map’ To Vaccinating Children: ‘Sometime In The Fall’)
After a slow start, vaccine distribution had picked up across the U.S. until the storms hit. According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 61 million doses have been administered, with more than 17 million Americans receiving their second shot.