February 2, 2021 6:13 AM By Brandon Lee
More Americans have taken at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine than have tested positive for the coronavirus, an early but still hopeful milestone in the race to end the pandemic.
As of yesterday evening, 26.5 million Americans had received one or both doses of the current vaccines, data gathered by the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker show. Since the first patient tested positive in the U.S. nearby Seattle a year ago, 26.2 million people in the country have tested positive for the disease, which has killed nearly 450,000 people, Johns Hopkins University data showed.
The U.S. has been administering vaccines at a faster daily rate than any country in the world, giving about 1.35 million doses per day, according to data gathered by Bloomberg News. While the rollout stumbled in its early days, in the six weeks since the first shots went into arms almost 7.8% of Americans have gotten one or more doses, and 1.8% are fully vaccinated.
The situation unfolding in the US, home of technology giants, frustrates an audience eager for the vaccinations. Furthermore, data gaps could distort the national picture of how efficiently vaccines are used if a certain number of doses administered are not counted.
“We feel it is a significant amount,” said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “That becomes clearer as the data systems improve and we get a better idea of what we are missing.”
It is a situation that some officials saw coming. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in his testimony to Congress in September called “years of underinvestment” in public health systems. He then said that the Trump administration intended to help states plug gaps in IT capacity.
January 25, 2021 6:10 AM By Brandon Lee and Alex Ruoff
The generic drug industry is gearing up for a busy year with lawmakers mulling changes to the pharmaceutical supply chain and how medicines are priced.
The Covid-19 pandemic sparked fears among U.S. regulators and lawmakers around drug shortages and U.S. reliance on foreign medicine producers, particularly for the ingredients crucial to generic drugs.
âA large part of the conversation, particularly in early 2020, was whether we are too reliant on one part of the world for manufacturing,â Erik Komendant, vice president of federal affairs for the Association for Accessible Medicines, said. The group is the lead lobbying organization for Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Novartisâs Sandoz, and other generic drugmakers. âThose concerns didnât pan out because of our members.â