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Scant funding and scattered logistics have slowed distribution process as coronavirus case numbers rise, painting a dire picture for the future
Healthcare workers treat coronavirus patients at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas on 31 December 2020. Photograph: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters
Healthcare workers treat coronavirus patients at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas on 31 December 2020. Photograph: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters
Victoria Bekiempis in New York and agencies
Sat 2 Jan 2021 02.00 EST
Last modified on Mon 4 Jan 2021 07.00 EST
America had no trouble hitting the appalling milestone of 20m coronavirus cases, but reaching the federal government’s own target of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of 2020 proved a huge problem.
Reuters Reuters
1 January, 2021, 2:08 pm
FILE PHOTO: George Valley, a patient at Crown Heights Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, a nursing home facility, receives the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine from Walgreens Pharmacist Annette Marshall, in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., December 22, 2020. REUTERS/Yuki Iwamura/File Photo
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Seattle public health officials have so little COVID-19 funding on hand they worry they will have to shut down some virus testing sites as they mount a campaign to dose their 2.3 million residents with Pfizer Inc’s and Moderna Inc’s vaccines.
King County, which represents greater Seattle, has $14 million of COVID-19 funding for 2021, roughly enough to fund its operations for a single month, and a fraction of the $87 million emergency COVID-19 aid it received in 2020, said Ingrid Ulrey, the public health policy director for King County.