White House plans to redistribute unordered vaccine supply, telling states: Use it or lose it
Source: Washington Post
The White House on Tuesday told states vaccine supply they leave unordered will become available to other states — the most significant shift in domestic vaccine distribution since President Biden took office, and part of an effort to account for flagging demand in parts of the country. Each state’s share of the total adult population will still determine weekly allocations. But instead of allowing unordered doses to carry over week-to-week, the White House will steer untapped vaccine into a federal bank available to states where demand continues to outstrip supply. Those states will be able to order up to 50 percent above their weekly allocation.
The use-it-or-lose-it strategy has the potential to transform how vaccine flows across the country. In recent weeks, numerous states have begun leaving significant quantities of doses on the shelves. Last week, officials in Arkansas declined their entire share, the state confirmed. The scramble to make use of all available shots is intensifying as the pace of daily vaccinations falls off significantly — and as health authorities pivot to inoculating hesitant and hard-to-reach populations. The seven-day average of daily shots administered dropped by 17 percent during the past week, according to data analyzed by The Washington Post, and by 33 percent since April 13.
Jeff Zients, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said the changes reflect how quickly the federal government has been able to make shots available to everyone eager for them. People willing to drive long distances have been covered, he said. More than 80 percent of people older than 65 have received at least one dose. In the next phase of the immunization campaign, defined by efforts to improve access and build confidence, “there is a need to add more flexibility to the current system,” Zients said in an interview. The White House was at pains to avoid the perception of penalizing states — or of picking winners and losers. Those not ordering their full allocation one week will not lose out permanently, instead ceding supply on a one-time basis.
The changes are sensitive because governors have grown protective of vaccine supply, eager to tout expanding availability for constituents after a period of intense scarcity in the winter. Federal officials had weighed other changes, including metrics that would account not just for unordered inventory but the pace of administering shots already distributed to states, according to people familiar with the discussions. The White House, however, has been intent on adhering closely to the population-based formula, notably rejecting an appeal from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) to surge vaccine to her state as it faced a crushing caseload in March and April.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/05/04/vaccine-distribution-biden/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Pennsylvania is an example. Philly, Pittsburgh, Harrisonburg, and Erie will all get to 70% or better imho.
The middle 'Kentucky' part of the State will never reach those numbers...hence death in the middle and life in the Cities.
I'm sure it will be like that all over the country.
Death knows no politics.
I expect much of this is because supplies have been sent to states and they are supposed to regularly report how much has been used. And if they are not distributing what they have from week to week, then why keep giving them "excess" that will sit in freezers and not be used right away? 
Additionally, the article mentions the plan was not to make this "permanent". A reduction in one location one week would basically be a "one time" thing and not necessarily be a permanent reduction for the future.
I suppose in the business world, the term is "right-sizing" the distribution from week to week, still taking into account the population of each state.
when there are some states saying "yes, we have willing people waiting for this right now". This would get more people vaccinated earlier. And some states, typically Republican ones (voting or controlled) are lagging:
Link to tweet
Those who don't want to get vaxxed will use any excuse they can dream up or pull out of the air. If some of them decide to use this as their excuse du jour, so what? If they do, that means they weren't getting vaxxed anyway.
they wanted to use the J&J 1-shot vaccine to get to those populations. They have had outreach workers at the shelters and even getting to some who are sleeping in the transit stations (who have been reticent to go to one of the shelters), etc. That way they would be "one and done" - at least for the time being to reduce the spread. They have also wanted that for those who are home-bound with caretakers (not in a hospital or nursing home or rehab facility).
The Philly Inquirer recently had an article about a young nurse practitioner who once he was done his shift in the hospital, would take the hospital's leftover doses and "hit the road", literally going from neighborhood to neighborhood all around the city to give those folks a shot before the doses expired (since the vials were already thawed).
Link to tweet
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@nonorganical
Recently, @esilverman11 and I followed nurse practitioner @InclusionPhilly as he raced across the city to give unused COVID-19 vaccine doses, which would otherwise expire, to homebound individuals and caregivers unable to get to vaccination clinics: https://inquirer.com/news/inq2/philadelphia-covid-19-vaccine-leftover-doses-20210414.html
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9:48 AM · Apr 14, 2021
https://www.inquirer.com/news/inq2/philadelphia-covid-19-vaccine-leftover-doses-20210414.html
I expect there are probably hundreds of thousands or more of people like this - scattered around the country and embedded in cities, suburbs, and rural areas, who need someone to come to them to give them a shot.
