January 15, 2021
7:58 PM ET
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The additional stockpile of coronavirus vaccine doses promised to be released by the Trump administration this week does not actually exist, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced Friday.
Azar said Tuesday that a reserve supply of doses that were previously being held back would be released in full to states to speed up inoculations. States are learning the reserve doses they planned to receive aren’t coming, according to the Washington Post.
Both Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines require two doses, taken weeks apart, for full efficacy. Trump administration officials initially said they would hold back roughly half of the nation’s vaccine supply to ensure they had enough doses to give everyone who received their first dose a second shot without a delay in case of lagging production.