January 26th local time, New Jersey and New York City said one after another that the COVID-19 vaccines received at present could not meet the vaccination needs of local residents at all.
New Jersey has had to close vaccination sites, and the mayor of New York said that there is “little supply” for even the city to set up new coronavirus vaccination appointments.
A spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Health said on January 26th local time that the large COVID-19 vaccination site in Meadowlands was temporarily closed due to lack of vaccine doses.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy subsequently confirmed the news to the media and said that New Jersey needed more COVID-19 vaccines to achieve the A plan to vaccinate 70% of the state’s population within six months.
With about 270 vaccination sites in New Jersey, including six so-called “giant sites”, Murphy said that New Jersey had to close some vaccination sites, which he tried to avoid. He said that 2.2 million New Jerseyans have pre-registered for the coronavirus vaccine, but the supply can’t meet the demand at all.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio also said on the 26th that New York City has “little supply” to make new coronavirus vaccination appointments. De Blasio said that there are only 7,710 doses of vaccine on the city, and 72,409 doses of a second dose of vaccine need to be booked.
He said that New York City had already vaccinated citizens with more than 650,000 doses of COVID-19, but the doses received were simply oversupply, saying De Blasio, “We have little supply to give people the opportunity to continue to make appointments for vaccinations.”
In order to meet the frequent demand for vaccine supply across the United States, Moderna said on the 26th that it will deliver about 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the United States at the end of the first quarter of 2021, and the total supply will reach 200 million doses in the next three months.
Moderna signed a procurement agreement with the United States for 200 million doses, and Moderna said 30.4 million doses of vaccine have been supplied so far.
