States adding Covid-19 vaccination sites, but governors complain the feds need to give them more doses - CNN

Though the Trump administration announced this week that it would release all available Covid-19 vaccine doses instead of holding second doses in reserve, a senior administration official told CNN Friday that many of those reserves were already released last year.

Also on Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told NBC News there is no "reserve stockpile" of Covid-19 vaccine doses left to release.

"We now have enough confidence that our ongoing production will be quality and available to provide the second dose for people, so we're not sitting on a reserve anymore," Azar said.

More than 2,000 people were registered to receive shots there Friday, and the site eventually is expected to serve more than 12,000 per day, officials have said.

Other states are letting pharmacies and large businesses give vaccinations.

But not everybody has enough vaccine.

"I have 2.1 million of you in line, and they gave us 60,000 [vaccine doses]," Minnesota Gov.

Who's going to be prosecuted for this?"

Pfizer on Friday said it has second doses ready to ship as needed, though.

"Operation Warp Speed (OWS) has asked us to start shipping second doses only recently.

Biden on Friday pledged to communicate better with states about distribution and to make sure as many vaccine doses are made available as soon as possible.

"Our administration will release the vast majority of the vaccines when they're available," Biden said Friday.

Biden aims to vaccinate 100 million people in 100 days, and that's a feasible goal, Dr.

Anthony Fauci said Friday on NBC's "Today" show.

"Even now, we've gone from half a million a day to 750,000 (doses) a day.

I believe strongly that it (1 million per day) is doable -- and if we do it, stay on target to get the overwhelming majority of the country vaccinated," said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Discrepancies in vaccine distribution

Nearly 10.6 million people have received at least their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, with more than 1.6 million of those having also received their second dose, according to data published by the CDC.

We needed to move."

Other states are not having the same success as West Virginia.

Texas -- the second-most populous state -- has administered the most doses of any state so far, with more than 1 million total doses put into arms, according to CDC data.

Yet about 10% of the rural hospitals in Texas have yet to receive a single Covid-19 vaccine dose, according to a group representing rural hospitals in the state.

The state was tied for 18th in total doses administered per capita as of Thursday, according to CDC data.

One CEO of a rural hospital group in Texas reported that some employees had to get vaccines from a local supermarket, which had extra doses to spare.

In some metropolitan areas, including Houston, Phoenix and Los Angeles, stadiums and theme parks or their parking lots are being used as mass-vaccination sites.

Latest surge has resulted in record deaths

The US has counted more Covid-19 deaths these last two weeks than any other 14-day stretch of the pandemic.