Walz welcomes Biden plan to speed COVID vaccine release, urges Minnesotans to be patient

Governors of eight states, including Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are pressing the federal government to supply states with more doses of COVID-19 vaccines.

The governors sent a letter to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar asking why millions of doses are available vaccines are being held back instead of shipped out.

The letter said, in part:

"According to publicly reported information, the federal government currently has upwards of 50% of currently produced vaccines held back by the administration for reasons unknown. While some of these life-saving vaccines are sitting in Pfizer freezers, our nation is losing 2,661 Americans each day, according to the latest seven-day average. The failure to distribute these doses to states who request them is unconscionable and unacceptable. We demand that the federal government begin distributing these reserved doses to states immediately."

Walz voiced concerns about the slow rollout after touring a vaccine clinic for first responders Friday in Plymouth.

Gov. Walz visits COVID-19 vaccine clinic for first responders, Phase 1A of vaccinations still on track

"They set the bar really high and over-promised and it was more complex than that," Walz said of the federal government. "They set the bar really high for Americans who had every reason to expect they were going to get the 20 million out they promised. They told us we would be at 600,000 by now and not 300,000."

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS asked HHS to respond to the letter sent by the governors. A spokesperson sent the following statement:

"The FDA recently reiterated the importance of adhering to science and data, and to comply with the dosing schedule for the authorized vaccines. Operation Warp Speed is continuing to ensure second doses are available to vaccine administration sites, at appropriate intervals, as directed by jurisdiction leaders. We would be delighted to learn that jurisdictions have actually administered many more doses than they are presently reporting. We are encouraging jurisdictions to expand their priority groups as needed to ensure no vaccine is sitting on the shelf after having been delivered to the jurisdiction-directed locations."

President-elect Joe Biden announced Friday he will be taking a new direction to speed the release of coronavirus vaccines when he assumes office Jan. 20.

"It makes a lot of sense to move vaccine faster if we have the infrastructure to deliver it, which we have," Minnesota Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said. "We’re just going to have to figure out the logistics of being sure that those second doses are, instead of the feds reserving those, we’re going to have to figure out how to reserve them."

Walz said communication to states about vaccines has been "challenging" the past few weeks and urged Minnesotans to be patient as the rollout continues.