CBS: As vaccinations slow, at least 22 states not ordering their full allotment

At least 22 states are not requesting their full coronavirus vaccine allotments for this week as the pace of vaccinations slows around the U.S., according to a CBS News analysis released Monday.

CBS says it reached out to health officials in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and of the 38 states that responded, only 16 said they had ordered every vaccine that was available to them.

Arkansas health officials told CBS that the state did not order any new vaccines for the week beginning Monday as the state’s supply is sufficient for its current rate of inoculation, the only state to say so.

South Carolina reportedly only ordered Johnson & Johnson doses, while declining further doses of Moderna’s or Pfizer’s two-shot vaccines.

Federal officials have acknowledged that the pace of U.S. vaccinations is slowing, and some health experts have publicly worried whether the U.S. will reach herd immunity for COVID-19 given that as many as eight or nine out of ever 10 people need to be vaccinated for the population to be effectively immune from the virus.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki addressed the slowing vaccination rate last month, noting that the U.S. would soon reach a point where supply outstrips demand and adding that the Biden administration was working to address the issue.

“We will … get to a point where we have greater supply than we have demand is because — only in some regions of the country, I should say, as you know, not everywhere — is because we work quickly to increase supply and provide thousands of easy and convenient locations for people to get vaccinated,” Psaki said.

President Biden predicted Monday that the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak would be in a “very different position” by the summer.

“I’ve worked very hard to make sure we have over 600 million doses of vaccine,” Biden said. “We are going to continue to make sure that is available. We are going to increase that number across the board as well so we can also be helping other nations once we take care of all Americans.”