States face vaccine shortage, canceling appointments

Several US states have reported they are running short of doses of COVID-19 vaccines, causing tens of thousands of appointments to be canceled.

New York City has had to postpone more than 23,000 scheduled appointments this week alone for lack of supply, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference Wednesday.

Governor Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday that the state's supply is just a few days from exhaustion, with just 145,780 first doses on hand in the state. The state has been administering an average of about 65,000 doses daily, Cuomo said.

New York City temporarily closed its COVID-19 vaccination hubs on Wednesday due to a lack of supply from the federal government, according to city officials.

In West Virginia, which has had one of the speediest vaccine rollouts, officials told The Associated Press that they didn't receive an increase in the number of doses this week despite already administering 99 percent of the first doses they had.

"Here we are with no vaccines," Governor Jim Justice told the AP. "We've got them all in people's arms, and we've done exactly what we should have done. ... I think performance ought to be rewarded."

In Los Angeles County, limits in the supply of COVID-19 vaccine are restricting vaccinations for many older residents.

"We do not have enough of the COVID-19 vaccine for everyone," LA County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda Solis told the Los Angeles Times. "That includes all those 65 and older, but we will get there. Patience."

The Miami area and San Francisco both reportedly have had to cancel appointments.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine requested more doses from the new Biden administration as the state struggles with high hospitalizations and a death toll that has passed 10,000.

"We are not lacking the infrastructure," DeWine said in a letter to the Biden administration. "We are lacking the vaccine."

As governors search for ways to supplement their limited supply of shots, some want to buy Pfizer's COVID-19 directly from the manufacturer. But their requests have been rejected by the Biden administration.

"We need to have a national approach to vaccinations and must ensure states aren't competing against each other like they did with PPE, ventilators and tests," spokesperson T.J. Deckle said in a statement.

Dr Rochelle Walensky, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said Thursday that the administration is looking into what is constraining supply.

The reason for the widespread shortage of state supplies remains unclear because about half of the 37 million doses distributed to the states by the federal government had been administered as of Thursday.

About 13 million people have received the first dose, but only about 2 million people have received the two doses needed for maximum protection against the virus.

Meanwhile, in Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief said Thursday that the global COVID-19 caseload is expected to hit 100 million by the end of January.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that more than 2 million people have died from COVID-19 worldwide.

However, COVID-19 vaccines have the potential to bring the pandemic under control, he told the extraordinary meeting of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization.

COVID-19 vaccinations are now underway in more than 50 countries, said Tedros, yet all but two of them are high- or upper-middle income countries.

"We must work together as one global family to ensure the urgent and equitable rollout of vaccines," he said.

The WHO chief also stressed that vaccines complement rather than replace fundamental public health measures that individuals, communities and governments must take to stop the spread of COVID-19, which he said is especially important in the face of rapidly spreading variants.

According to the latest WHO data, as of Thursday, there have been 95,612,831 confirmed coronavirus cases and 2,066,176 deaths worldwide.

Agencies contributed to this story.