White House to shift how it distributes unallocated vaccines to states White House officials on Tuesday told states that if they do not order their full allocation of vaccine doses in the coming weeks, those doses will be reallocated as the administration shifts how it Brett Samuels TheHill

White House officials on Tuesday told states that if they do not order their full allocation of vaccine doses in the coming weeks, those doses will be reallocated as the administration shifts how it gets the shot to areas most in need.

President Biden on Tuesday is set to announce new steps to reach rural Americans in the push to get as many people as possible vaccinated for the coronavirus, a White House official tells NPR. This emphasis comes as rural hospitals are raising alarms about the pace of vaccination — even among their own employees.

The Biden administration is moving into a new phase of its vaccination campaign, one where it knows doctors and health care professionals are often more persuasive than the government.

It has prioritized a list of doctors enrolled in the vaccine system based on a "social vulnerability index" used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — including doctors in many rural communities — and has been asking state government to send vaccine doses to those doctors, the official said.

More than 20 states not ordering all available doses as COVID-19 vaccinations slow As demand slows, health officials shift from triaging a flood of people clamoring for the shots to targeting harder-to-reach communities. CBSNews

As the pace of vaccinations continues to slow across the country, more than 20 states are not ordering all the available COVID-19 vaccine doses allocated to them by the federal government, according to a CBS News tally. 

Moderna will supply 34 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine this year and Sweden has donated 1 million AstraZeneca shots to the global COVAX program, a small boost as it struggles to get stocks to inoculate the world’s poorest people.

The advance purchase contract agreed with Moderna is for up to 500 million doses, but the rollout will only start in the fourth quarter, with 34 million doses available this year, the GAVI vaccine alliance said on Monday.

The bulk — 466 million — would only become available next year, it said.

The deal expands the program’s pipeline of vaccines to eight and contains options to potentially access doses of variant-adapted vaccines in the future, it said.

The agreement follows the U.S. drugmaker’s shot being approved for emergency use listing by the WHO on Friday, a prerequisite for COVAX eligibility. read more

GAVI runs the COVAX vaccine sharing facility with the World Health Organization.

The Swedish donation is the second by a European Union member after France last month amid mounting concerns about growing inequity in vaccine distribution after wealthy countries built up stocks of shots for its citizens. read more