US states complain of dramatic cuts to their vaccine allocation

Moderna is the second vaccine to be approved by US regulators

Credit: Joel Saget/AFP

Governors across the US have complained they are not receiving as many doses of the Covid-19 vaccine as they were promised by the Trump administration.

The row over the allocation of Pfizer’s drug erupted as the US Food and Drug Administration gave the green light for a second vaccine, produced by Massachusetts-based Moderna, to be used in the US.

Distribution of the Pfizer vaccine, under the Administration’s Operation Warp Speed, began at the beginning of last week. 

Governors in at least a dozen states have said their allocation has been slashed, in some cases by as much as 40 per cent.

Their complaints came against a backdrop of Covid-19 pandemic showing no signs of slowing down with more than 17 million cases and nearly 314,000 deaths in the US.

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Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington State, said he was given no explanation for the cut in his allocation. “This is disruptive and frustrating. We need accurate, predictable numbers to plan and ensure on-the-ground success,” he wrote on Twitter.

Republican Larry Hogan of Maryland said he was still trying to "figure out" what was going on.

US health secretary, Alex Azar, admitted that Pfizer had been facing some "production challenges".

“As you know, they ended up coming short by half of what they thought they’d be able to produce, and what they’d announced they’d be able to produce” in 2020.

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Pfizer, however, denied there were production delays. "We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses," the company said.

The approval of Moderna by US regulators will ease some of the pressure with trucks due to start delivering the first batch of 20 million doses on Sunday to more than 3,700 locations.

Moderna’s vaccine, which has been shown to be 94-95 per cent effective, has to be kept at -20C, the temperature of a normal freezer. This makes it easier to handle than that produced by Pfizer — which has to be kept at temperatures of -70C.

Britain has already secured seven million doses of the Moderna vaccine, which is enough to treat 3.5 million. people. The UK’s UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency started what it described as a rolling review of the drug in October.

With Moderna ramping up its European supply chain, it is anticipated that the vaccine will be available in the UK in the spring or summer.