by Peter Mertz
DENVER, the United States, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Governors and health officials across America's West voiced outrage Friday as the federal government's promises to release COVID-19 vaccines for thousands of citizens never happened.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis said the federal government showed "gross incompetence" and "lied" when it said Tuesday that it was releasing reserved doses.
But those doses don't exist anymore -- they were shipped out more than two weeks ago, forcing health departments across the west to scrap plans to immunize many, especially the elderly.
"I am shocked and appalled that they (present administration) have set an expectation on which they could not deliver, with such grave consequences," Oregon Governor Kate Brown tweeted Friday.
"This is a deception on a national scale. Oregon's seniors, teachers, all of us, were depending on the promise of Oregon's share of the federal reserve of vaccines being released to us," she added.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar dropped the bombshell Friday, reversing his declaration Tuesday, that the administration would be "releasing the entire supply for order by states, rather than holding second doses in reserve," CBS News reported.
But by Friday, Azar admitted that there was no reserve of second doses left to release, "No. There's not a reserve stockpile."
"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," he told NBC.
Michael Pratt, a spokesman for Operation Warp Speed (OWS), denied that the reserve was "exhausted" in a statement to CNN later Friday after these governors lashed at the Washington.
"This week, nearly 13 million total doses have been provided to states to order, millions more than other weeks, as the reserve of second doses is completely made available to order against," Pratt said.
"States have yet to fully order against their ordering caps," he said, adding that "we have now moved to the phase where the full amount released to OWS is being made available to order, first to cover second doses, second to provide additional first doses."
However, vaccine maker Pfizer said Friday it had the doses ready to deliver, while officials privately told the media the new doses may take another two weeks to distribute, leaving many states in a lurch.
In a letter to Azar, Oregon Health Director Patrick Allen cited a call with Brown and the OWS chief Gustave Perna on Thursday, and demanded that Azar "reconcile his statement about releasing the entire supply."
Polis said states like Colorado were "expecting to get 210,000 doses next week, but now there will only be 79,000 doses."
"We were led to believe just a few days ago the federal government was going to release their stockpile of second doses," he told CBS-News.
"That would have equated to about three weeks supply in one week for Colorado -- about 210,000 or so doses," he noted.
"And that was unfortunately not true. And we were ready to deploy it right away. And now we know that it simply doesn't exist," the governor concluded. Enditem
