Speaker 1: It's Thursday, January four. I'm Oscar Mrrors from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: The Trump administration has changed its vaccine rollout plans. It
Speaker 1: is now recommending for people over sixty five and those
Speaker 1: with high risk conditions such as heart disease or diabetes,
Speaker 1: to get the vaccine immediately. They also want to send
Speaker 1: out more first doses without reserving the second shot, hoping
Speaker 1: more people can start the process. Dan Vergano, science reporter
Speaker 1: at BuzzFeed News, joins us for the rollout changes and
Speaker 1: concerns from the Biden administration about the new plan. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us, Dan, glad to be with you. Operation
Speaker 1: warp Speat officials have changed course on their vaccine rollout plan.
Speaker 1: They want to broaden the amount of people that can
Speaker 1: get this right now. I know we're going through these
Speaker 1: kind of tiered phases and all, but they want to
Speaker 1: open it up to all people over the age of
Speaker 1: sixty five and anyone that has high risk conditions such
Speaker 1: as diabetes, heart disease, obesity. And I think they also
Speaker 1: want to kind of just throw all the available doses
Speaker 1: out there. I know we were saving some for a
Speaker 1: second dose, you know, which is supposed to be taken
Speaker 1: about three weeks four weeks apart. They just kind of
Speaker 1: want to open the floodgates right now. So Dan tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about the plan from Operation Warp Speed.
Speaker 1: So from Operation Warp Speed to viewpoint, what they have
Speaker 1: done is they've assured themselves that the manufacturers are producing
Speaker 1: enough vaccine on time, so that if they do instead
Speaker 1: of holding back a reserve shot for the second dose
Speaker 1: for everyone, they get a first shot too, but instead
Speaker 1: they can just sort of send out all the shots
Speaker 1: they got and be reassured that there will be a
Speaker 1: second shot around instead of hanging around for it. And
Speaker 1: this is an effort to increase the supply of shots
Speaker 1: out there for the people to get. What they're finding
Speaker 1: also is that they're not getting good reporting back on
Speaker 1: who's gotten a shot and when the states jurisdictions are
Speaker 1: supposed to reply within seventy two hours, Yes, we gave
Speaker 1: somebody a shot. They're used to do in that in
Speaker 1: thirty days. And there's the sense that a lot of
Speaker 1: states aren't, which might explain the low rate of vaccinations overall.
Speaker 1: You know, they said they sent out about twenty nine
Speaker 1: million shot and only about nine million people have gotten one,
Speaker 1: so there's only about a third of people have gotten
Speaker 1: the shots they sent out, so there's some frustration there.
Speaker 1: So they're trying to use a stick like you know,
Speaker 1: don't report and you don't get any more vaccines. The
Speaker 1: allocation was just done by state population. Now the allocation
Speaker 1: is going to be done by over sixty five population.
Speaker 1: This is an attempt to get more doses to more
Speaker 1: people who are at higher risk. There's also as well,
Speaker 1: sorry to give you the entire rundown, but also they
Speaker 1: promised that they're going to do more outreach to set
Speaker 1: up mass vaccination sites and help states with the vaccinations.
Speaker 1: It's a recognition that operation more speed while it was
Speaker 1: making factories to make these vaccines before they proved out
Speaker 1: and sort of compressing the testing timeline, which you know,
Speaker 1: although still using all the same safety measures, were still
Speaker 1: sort of compressed in terms of how they usually do it.
Speaker 1: That they did not actually assist the states in setting
Speaker 1: up places for people to get shots. Where uh, it's
Speaker 1: clear that the states need more help than they can
Speaker 1: do by themselves, and so the FEDS are offering them
Speaker 1: some assistance, right, and We're starting to see that in
Speaker 1: a lot of places in California where I'm at, Dodger
Speaker 1: Stadium is being turned into a vaccination site. Disneyland is
Speaker 1: being turned into a vaccination site. So these big centers
Speaker 1: are going to start opening up. What does the Biden
Speaker 1: administration said about this plan? Because I know they had
Speaker 1: a similar plan where they wanted to get more people
Speaker 1: their first doses and just so we can start getting
Speaker 1: as many people vaccinated as possible. But I know that
Speaker 1: there's some concerns from them, and they're coming into power
Speaker 1: next week, so things will change slightly. I'm assuming what
Speaker 1: are some of the concerns from the Biden team. So
Speaker 1: Biden's team last week said that they supported the one
Speaker 1: part of Operation Work Speeds Change, which is to not
Speaker 1: hold back the second doses, but to send them out
Speaker 1: and figure that just in time, the manufacturing will be
Speaker 1: there to provide those second doses. What you're reading and
Speaker 1: hearing is that the Biden team is a little bit
Speaker 1: nervous about them suddenly throwing the gates open. Everybody in
Speaker 1: the country if you add up all the people in
Speaker 1: Group one. This is the priority that the CDC's Advisor
Speaker 1: Committee set up for which started with healthcare personnel and
Speaker 1: people in long care nursing homes, and now it's everybody
Speaker 1: over sixty five and anybody who has a high risk condition.
Speaker 1: That added like a hundred nine million people to who
Speaker 1: already were eligible. So you're talking about hundred seventy four
Speaker 1: million people. That's half the country, right, So all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the Biden folks are walking in there with
Speaker 1: half the country expecting them to get them a dose tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And this doesn't add up. First, we aren't getting shots
Speaker 1: to the people who we do send the dose without
Speaker 1: for and there ain't a hundred seventy four million times
Speaker 1: two doses anyway. The manufacturers have promised to deliver something
Speaker 1: like a hundred million each shots, you know, in the
Speaker 1: first quarter of the year. That's only enough for a
Speaker 1: hundred million people. That's not a hundred and seventy four
Speaker 1: million people. So they're worried that Trump is sticking them
Speaker 1: with a promise that he doesn't have to deliver on
Speaker 1: and that they're going to be sort of stuck with. Although,
Speaker 1: of course Biden's campaign pledge was a hundred million shots
Speaker 1: in the first hundred days of his administration, which looked
Speaker 1: doable for the numbers that the manufacturers are promising, realizing
Speaker 1: that a hundred million shots is just fifty million people vaccinated,
Speaker 1: right because together by number and two. So of course
Speaker 1: they're looking this gift horse in the mouth here that
Speaker 1: Trump has left them with. Of course, how are we
Speaker 1: looking with regards to people's willingness to actually take the vaccine?
Speaker 1: Because we're talking about all these vaccines flooding the market,
Speaker 1: let's say, right, more available for people. But I am
Speaker 1: still hearing anecdotally at least a lot of people hesitant
Speaker 1: to take these vaccines. It's clear that there's some hesitancy.
Speaker 1: Typically only about eight percent of people in the healthcare
Speaker 1: profession get the flu shot. You know, who should know better?
Speaker 1: And here, you know, you do see these reports of
Speaker 1: different healthcare personel refusing to take it. That's just part
Speaker 1: of the human tapestry. In polls, something about two thirds
Speaker 1: to more people say that they'd be willing to take
Speaker 1: a shot now. But that still leaves you know, the
Speaker 1: country's population isnty million people more than a hundred million
Speaker 1: people who said they wouldn't get a shot. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of people, right, and that's a drag because we
Speaker 1: need to get what they call population immunity or sometimes
Speaker 1: herd immunity. The wrong number in just the naive estimate
Speaker 1: is at least they're about six of the population immunized.
Speaker 1: So we're starting to play with that. If we have
Speaker 1: people who won't even get it, this is what we're
Speaker 1: gonna see. We saw this with H one and one
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine. There's going to be people
Speaker 1: who refuse to take it. There's to be people who
Speaker 1: want to take it. But you know, our complacent and like,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty healthy, I'll look you do it some other day,
Speaker 1: and you know, this kind of hesitancy is just going
Speaker 1: to be, you know, along with waiting in line. You know,
Speaker 1: it's going to be just part of our experience for
Speaker 1: the next six to twelve months. The initial rollout of
Speaker 1: the vaccines has been slow. As we know, we're starting
Speaker 1: to ramp things up. I'm hoping nothing but positive things
Speaker 1: happen with these continued rollouts and changes to the rollout,
Speaker 1: so we'll see how all of it plays out. Dan Vergano,
Speaker 1: science reporter at BuzzFeed News, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: joining us. You bet, I'm Oscar Ramirez, and this has
Speaker 1: been reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories,
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