Source: U.S. Army
BY STAS MARGARONIS
The crisis bogging down vaccinating Americans against the COVID virus can be alleviated by mobilizing U.S. Armed Forces and deploy qualified medical and support personnel to accelerate vaccinations, according to a knowledgeable, retired senior U.S. Army officer.
The U.S. Army officer, who asked not to be identified, said:
“There is no doubt in my mind that the Armed Forces should have been mobilized back in November to assist states in vaccinating people. We have plenty of qualified medical technicians, nurses and doctors in the Army, Air Force, Marines and Navy who can be deployed alongside National Guard units to get this vaccine out.
The problem was that the Trump administration … failed to develop a plan and failed to mobilize the Armed Forces to expedite vaccines.”
Hospitals Running Short Of Vaccines
On January 23rd, the New York Times reported that U.S. hospitals are running out of vaccines. The report cited San Francisco as one of many cases and quoted Dr. Grant Colfax, head of the San Francisco Department of Public Health, who warned that San Francisco, like other localities, is “very close to doses running out.”
He explained:
“I think what this really is, is a continuation of the fallout of the lack of a coordinated federal response ….Basically, cities and counties were left on our own to deal with this pandemic…It has manifested in a very tragic way.”[1]
The officer concurs with Dr. Colfax:
“I was saying last summer that there needed to be a plan to administer the vaccines and not just deliver them once the vaccines were approved. The Trump administration had no plan and simply left the process of vaccinations to the states and that was never going to work without a national strategy.”
The officer supports mobilizing the states’ National Guard units for vaccine duty but notes “since the pandemic hit last March the states don’t have money. You can’t mobilize them unless you can pay them.”
Second Dose Requirement Slows Vaccinations
The officer says the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has complicated the vaccine effort by limiting vaccines in order to maintain a reserve for a second dose:
“The CDC was telling the states to hold back 50% of the vaccine so there would be enough for second doses. That’s nuts. In this emergency you need to vaccinate as many people as possible and then give them a second dose when you have it. So you can see how vaccines are getting spoiled because of faulty guidance. “
In a January 3rd Washington Post Opinion, Robert M. Wachter chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, argued: “It’s time to consider delaying the second dose of coronavirus vaccine.”
The doctors explained:
“Until recently, we supported the strict vaccine regimen, requiring two doses within a month. Both the Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials were carried out this way, and the much-touted 95 percent efficacy rates were drawn from those trials….
What changed? First, there’s simply a supply constraint. We hoped that additional vaccines would be available by now. But only the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been authorized, and they’re being produced more slowly than hoped. Even more worrisome are the distribution bottlenecks that are making it difficult to vaccinate people as quickly as possible.”[2]
Pfizer Vaccine Challenges
A further logistics problem, the officer cited, is the Pfizer requirement that the vaccine be stored at very cold temperatures: “The Pfizer vaccine was always going to be a problem because it needs deep freeze capability, which you will have at major hospitals and medical centers in major urban areas but not so much in medium and smaller areas and especially not in rural areas and on Native American reservations.
The result is many locations are unable to administer all the Pfizer vaccines within the 5-day window that is prescribed, which means that vaccines are spoiling because localities that had them did not have a plan to administer the vaccines quickly enough.”
An advisory by CDC and Pfizer notes that, without sufficient trained personnel, there are challenges storing the vaccine that could lead to vaccine vials being discarded resulting in reduced vaccinations:
“ Vaccine may be stored in an ultra-cold freezer between -80°C and -60°C (-112°F and -76°F)….. CDC recommends providers consider using the thermal shipping container for temporary storage only. The container requires significant support to store vaccine at proper temperatures, including, trained staff, a regular supply of dry ice and standard operating procedures on regular maintenance…. Before mixing, the vaccine may be stored in the refrigerator between 2°C and 8°C (36°F and 46°F) for up to 120 hours (5 days). After 120 hours (5 days), remove any remaining vials from the refrigerator and discard following the manufacturer’s and your jurisdiction’s guidance on proper disposal.”[3]
Klain Outlines Biden Plan
On January 24th, President Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, described the Biden administration’s plan for vaccine delivery on NBC’s Meet the Press program. Klain’s comments appear to support the type of mobilization effort that could be complemented by U.S. military personnel:
“Like all complex processes, this is a very complex process that needs help on all fronts. We need more vaccine. We need more vaccinators. We need more vaccination sites. And in the Biden administration, we’re tackling all three…. the fundamental difference between the Biden approach and the Trump approach is that we’re going to take responsibility at the federal government. We’re going to own this problem. We’re going to work closely with the states. They are our key partners in getting this done. But we’re also going to do the work ourselves. We’re going to set up these federal vaccination centers to make sure that in states that don’t have enough vaccination sites, we fill those gaps. We’re going to work closely with the manufacturers to ramp up production. One of the first orders the President signed was using his legal authority under the Defense Production Act to mandate the production of more vials..”
Pentagon Opposed To Hand-On Vaccination Role
The Associated Press reported In October, 2020, that the Defense Department had played an important role in planning, logistics support and in making investments in COVID vaccine development. However, the Defense Department does not see U.S. military personnel playing a hands-on role distributing or administering vaccines:
The Pentagon has pointedly disputed suggestions that it intends to be delivering vaccines, saying instead that any involvement would be by exception, such as a case in which normal commercial delivery services could not reach a delivery point. Thus far, no such exception has been identified, the Pentagon said this past week.”[4]
However, state governors have the power to use members of their National Guard for any number of tasks supporting public safety, including to help with vaccine logistics if deemed necessary.
Cutbacks In Public Health Spending
The officer says a long-term problem has been that there have been cutbacks in spending for public health that date back to the Reagan administration: “The problem goes back to 40 years of cutbacks in spending for public health.”
The officer added that smaller and rural communities have become especially vulnerable to the public health cutbacks:
“There have been cutbacks in spending on public health budgets for years and many smaller and rural counties do not have sufficient qualified staff. I recently visited a County facility… and many of the positions there have not been filled..”
The officer believes the Armed Forces can be usefully deployed in the effort to distribute and administer vaccines and hopes new initiatives by the Biden administration will accelerate vaccinations.
FOOTNOTES
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/23/us/coronavirus-vaccines-canceled-appointments-shortages.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210124&instance_id=26354&nl=the-morning®i_id=85134366&segment_id=50117&te=1&user_id=00de88a7f2fe7bddf45b7195e3ee90d2
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/03/its-time-consider-delaying-second-dose-coronavirus-vaccine/
[3] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/downloads/storage-summary.pdf
[4] https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-politics-coronavirus-pandemic-4f0591ffa6ec392e884652f5fda75194