NEW YORK -- New York state's covid-19 positivity rate and deaths fell slightly as officials continue wrestling with a "limited supply" of vaccine as well as a more contagious variant of the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday. Worry about the vaccine supply was echoed in California and other states.
"New York is fighting to beat back COVID as we distribute the limited vaccine available as quickly as possible," Cuomo said in a statement.
Demand is outpacing vaccine supply in New York City, where at least one hospital was forced to cancel shot appointments and people were turned away for a second day Friday as they waited at the Brooklyn Army Terminal.
Cuomo said the positivity rate from testing was 5.77% on Friday, down from Thursday's 6.14%. A total of 157 people died, compared with Thursday's 183 deaths.
An additional case of the U.K. variant also was identified Friday, bringing the total number of known cases in the state to 17.
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"When communities decide to slow the spread, it will slow down. It's purely a function of our actions," Cuomo said, restating the need for mitigation including mask-wearing, social distancing, hand-washing -- "and the willingness of local governments to enforce the rules."
STATES' SUPPLIES
As California opens large vaccination sites to speed up inoculations, concern is growing among public health officials that the supply of doses could soon dry up.
State and local officials Friday complained that the scramble touched off by the federal government's recommendation to add people 65 and older to vaccine eligibility lists has not been accompanied by an increase in shipments.
That could add to an already confusing and chaotic rollout and could limit the number of people who can be vaccinated in California, just as the state seems to be gaining ground.
California has administered nearly 1.2 million vaccinations, or about 40% of the 3 million doses received, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday. That's a significant increase since Monday, when the state had administered about 783,000 doses, less than one-third of the 2.5 million doses on hand at the time.
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But Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Friday that some pharmacies that would have received more shipments this week have to wait a week "because the national supply simply isn't coming." Jeff Gorell, a deputy mayor, said Thursday that the city will receive 46,000 doses over the next few days but that city officials "don't know what the world looks like after Wednesday."
"It's not a problem with the state; it's not a problem here locally," Garcetti said. "We simply don't have the supply coming in."
U.S. governors said they had been expecting a sharp uptick in vaccine shipments, based on assurances from Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration initiative to develop and deliver vaccines. Instead, Newsom said Friday, officials "have "reneged on that, or for whatever reason are unable to deliver."
Trump administration officials had assured U.S. governors that they would soon release doses from a stockpile to help states ramp up their vaccination efforts. But it was reported Friday that the stockpile is already depleted and that states will not receive additional shipments, slowing vaccination programs across the country.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services did not return a request for comment.
President-elect Joe Biden echoed those concerns Friday, criticizing the U.S. vaccine rollout as "a dismal failure thus far."
A lack of clear information from the White House means state and local officials have been unable to make proper plans because they don't know how many doses they can expect or when they can expect them, Biden said. He said there were "tens of millions of doses" sitting unused in freezers.
Biden again said his goal is for the U.S. to administer 100 million vaccinations during his first 100 days in office, including at federally supported community vaccination centers and mobile clinics.
That type of effort will require a large and reliable flow of doses, as well as clear communication with local officials who are trying to determine how many appointments to schedule.
Los Angeles County officials estimate that by this week, they will be able to administer more than 40,000 doses per day at vaccination sites that include Dodger Stadium, five mega-sites run by the county -- including Six Flags Magic Mountain and the Pomona Fairplex -- and a handful of smaller city clinics.
Newsom's handling of the rollout has drawn criticism, too, including his announcement that people 65 and older would be prioritized for vaccinations -- creating mass confusion in counties where officials were not ready to administer the shots.
Officials have been inundated with calls from older people who want the vaccine, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said. But the county will not begin the next round of shots until health care workers are vaccinated.
The county is not hoarding doses, Barger said, but needs a promise from the state and federal governments that enough doses will arrive to keep vaccination sites running smoothly.
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"People are scared," Barger said. "That's really the takeaway I'm getting from people who are calling. People are frightened."
EFFORTS IN INDIA
India started inoculating health workers Saturday in what is likely the world's largest vaccination campaign, joining the ranks of nations where the effort is well underway.
India is home to the world's largest vaccine-makers and has one of the biggest immunization programs. But there is no playbook for the enormity of the current challenge.
Indian authorities hope to give shots to 300 million people, roughly the population of the U.S. and several times more than its existing national immunization program, which targets 26 million infants with vaccinations for other diseases. The recipients of the covid-19 vaccine include 30 million doctors, nurses and other front-line workers, to be followed by 270 million people who are either over 50 or have illnesses that make them vulnerable to covid-19.
For workers who have pulled India's battered health care system through the pandemic, the vaccinations offered confidence that life can start returning to normal. Many burst with pride.
"I am happy to get an India-made vaccine and that we do not have to depend on others for it," said Gita Devi, a nurse who was one of the first to get a shot. Devi has treated patients throughout the pandemic in a hospital in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state in India's heartland.
The first dose was administered to a sanitation worker at the All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences in the capital, New Delhi, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi kick-started the campaign with a nationally televised speech.
"We are launching the world's biggest vaccination drive, and it shows the world our capability," Modi said. He implored citizens to keep their guard up and not to believe any "rumors about the safety of the vaccines."
It was not clear whether Modi, 70, had received the vaccine himself as other world leaders have in an effort to demonstrate the safety of covid-19 vaccines. His government has said politicians will not be considered a priority group in the first phase of the rollout.
The sheer scale of the campaign has its obstacles, and some early snags were identified. For instance, there were delays in uploading the details of health care workers receiving the shots to a digital platform that India is using to track vaccinations, the Health Ministry said.
Shots were given to at least 165,714 people Saturday, Dr. Manohar Agnani, a Health Ministry official, said at an evening briefing. The ministry had said it was aiming to inoculate 100 people in each of the 3,006 vaccination centers across the country.
News cameras captured the injections in hundreds of hospitals, underscoring the hope that getting people vaccinated is the first step to recovering from a pandemic that has devastated the lives of so many Indians and bruised the country's economy. India is second only to the U.S. in the number of confirmed cases, with more than 10.5 million. The country ranks third in the number of deaths, with more than 152,000, behind the U.S. and Brazil.
India on Jan. 4 approved emergency use of two vaccines, one developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca, and another by the Indian company Bharat Biotech. Cargo planes flew 16.5 million shots to Indian cities last week.
But doubts over the effectiveness of the homegrown vaccine have created a hurdle for the ambitious plan. Health experts worry that the government's approval of the Bharat Biotech vaccine -- without concrete data showing its efficacy -- could amplify vaccine hesitancy. At least one state health minister has opposed its use.
"In a hurry to be populist, the government [is] taking decisions that might not be in the best interest of the common man," said Dr. S.P. Kalantri, director of a rural hospital in Maharashtra, India's worst-hit state. Kalantri said the regulatory approval was hasty and not backed by science.
In New Delhi, doctors at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, one of the largest in the city, demanded they be administered the AstraZeneca vaccine instead of the one developed by Bharat Biotech.
The Health Ministry has bristled at the criticism. It says the vaccines are safe and that health workers will have no choice in deciding which vaccine they get.
In wealthy countries including the United States, Britain, Israel, Canada and Germany, millions of citizens have already been given some measure of protection by vaccines developed with revolutionary speed and quickly authorized for use.
But elsewhere, immunization drives have barely gotten off the ground. Many experts are predicting another year of loss and hardship in places such as Iran, India, Mexico and Brazil, which together account for about a quarter of the world's covid-19 deaths.
More than 35 million doses of various vaccines have been administered around the world, according to the University of Oxford.
COVAX, a U.N.-backed project to supply shots to developing parts of the world, has found itself short of vaccines, money and logistical help.
As a result, the World Health Organization's chief scientist, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, warned last week that it is highly unlikely that herd immunity -- which would require at least 70% of the globe to be vaccinated -- will be achieved this year.
"Even if it happens in a couple of pockets, in a few countries, it's not going to protect people across the world," she said.
Information for this article was contributed by Cathy Burke of the New York Daily News (TNS); by Laura J. Nelson, Hayley Smith, Maya Lau, Jaclyn Cosgrove and Colleen Shalby of the Los Angeles Times (TNS); and by Aniruddha Ghosal, Sheikh Saaliq and Biswajeet Banerjee of The Associated Press.