Report: Agencies issued 200,000+ doses of COVID vaccine
- By FederalSoup Staff
- Jan 05, 2021
Feds started the new year like they ended the last one—with COVID-19 harming every corner of the country, as well as work and personal lives. According to the lead federal agency tracking the tragedy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus has caused over 20 million infections and over 350,000 deaths in the U.S.
But the math shows glimmers of change. Even under the added strains of a surge in COVID hospitalizations and what critics see as organizational stumbles, thousands of federal employees in key parts of the healthcare system are working hard to get desperately needed coronavirus vaccine distributed and in the arms of those who need it.
The results so far? About 200,000 doses of vaccine had been issued by top federal agencies by the beginning of this week, according to a report from GovExec. The Department of Veterans Affairs accounted for the vast majority of those doses, followed by the Department of Defense and several other federal entities.
The report notes, however, that federal agencies thus far have only injected a fraction—around a quarter—of the doses they’ve received, mirroring an unacceptably slow rollout in the wider state, local and private sector healthcare environments.