President Biden and Vice President Kamala D. Harris virtually toured a 24-7 vaccination site Monday at the Arizona Cardinals’ stadium that could serve as a model for others, as the U.S. pivots from immunizing priority groups to reaching older Americans and racing against fast-moving variants of the coronavirus.
Masked officials showed off a drive-thru operation that takes about 30 minutes per car and administers 8,000 to 9,000 doses per day as part of a federal-state partnership.
Prodded by the president, Arizona Health Director Cara M. Christ said the effort would have been “a huge logistical lift” without the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which provided staff at the state’s request to handle overnight shifts.
Mr. Biden said he’s looking to Glendale as a template after NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell called him during the Super Bowl to offer all 30 of the league’s stadiums as vaccination sites.
“I think they’re going to be coming to you looking at how you did it,” Mr. Biden told Dr. Christ.
The president, who was in Washington during the virtual event, acknowledged the odd nature of the check-in with vaccinators, saying he would have normally traveled to Arizona to greet them but that the very pandemic they are fighting made it difficult.
Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris went out their way to thank Arizona lawmakers from both parties, including Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, echoing the president’s unity pledge that’s been put to the test as Democrats forge ahead with a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.
“Never, ever, ever failed when we’re united. And you guys are the example of unity, so thank you, thank you, thank you,” Mr. Biden told vaccinators in Glendale.
States are given weekly allocations of COVID-19 vaccines based on population, so mass-vaccination sites popping up from coast to coast won’t magically increase the number of shots available.
But they can make the rollout more efficient. Steering people to mass-vaccination sites takes some of the burden off local health departments so that they can focus on serving hard-to-reach areas, said Michael Ricci, spokesman for Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.
It also gets states ready as the manufacturing improves and regulators approve new vaccines.
“That’s a big thing for states. We don’t want to be caught flat-footed if/when more supply — or more vaccines — comes online,” he said in an email.
Maryland has two mass-vaccination sites. One is at Six Flags America, east of the nation’s capital in Prince George’s County, and the other is at Baltimore Convention Center Field Hospital, which is a bridge to one being set up at M&T Bank Stadium later this month.
Mr. Ricci said there is some “agility” in running a mass-vaccination site. For example, the state can set aside tranches of vaccine for residents of Prince George’s County, which was hard-hit by the virus.
The Six Flags site should be able to do 2,000 appointments per day by the end of this week.
The site in Glendale is conducting 8,000 to 9,000 vaccines per day but it can do 12,000 per day if it gets more supply.
The U.S. has administered over 40 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines so far and averaged about 1.4 million per day last week, up from a rolling daily average of 1.3 million during last week.
The immunization campaign began narrowly, with clinics working through health workers at high risk of exposure and nursing homes that saw an outsized number of deaths from COVID-19. It’s now expanding into broader categories, leading to the construction of mass-vaccination centers that had been closely associated with places like Germany, which built 400 of them only to see many sit empty as the European Union struggles with vaccine shipments.
The U.S. is off to a faster start and tweaking its rollout as supply comes online. It is trying to outrun mutations like the B.1.1.7, or “U.K.,” variant of the virus that swamped London and southern England. The strain, which is most prevalent in Florida, is starting to spread faster than other strains in the U.S. Existing vaccines appear to stave off severe disease from the variants, but a laggard vaccine campaign could give the virus enough breathing room to mutate into stronger versions.
“There’s a lot to do and it’s going to take time. We’re going to face some setbacks along the way including the strains we’re going to see from South Africa and other places,” Mr. Biden said.
Partly for this reason, Mr. Biden is under pressure to set his sights higher than his modest goal of 100 million shots in his first 100 days.
Former President Donald Trump handed him an operation that was nearing 1 million shots per day, so Mr. Biden is trying to put his stamp on the vaccination effort by offering federal resources to states.
Some governors are leaning into the help. California Gov. Gavin Newsom launched sites at Oakland-Alameda Coliseum and California State University, Los Angeles, as part of the White House’s push to build 100 federally supported sites in Mr. Biden’s first 100 days.
Others are emphasizing their own efforts while pleading for a faster supply line from the federal government.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday he is doubling vaccine lanes at Hard Rock Stadium as more supply comes online from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna but he is “perplexed” by the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to wait until Feb. 26 to discuss the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine with outside advisers. The gap will give regulators time to review the company’s trial data.
“We understood it wasn’t going to be like a 24-hour process, but they set the date for the very end of February. In these times, working round the clock is something you should be doing to get these things approved as soon as possible,” Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, said at a press conference in Miami. “This is almost four weeks they will allow this to go.”
The agency, in its meeting announcement last week, said “this amount of time will allow the FDA to thoroughly evaluate the data and information submitted in the [emergency-use] request before the meeting and to be prepared for a robust public discussion with the advisory committee members.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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