Former FDA Director Says U.S. Coronavirus Vaccine Strategy is ‘Not Working’
Washington — Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former director of the Food and Drug Administration, said Sunday that the nation’s strategy for administering coronavirus vaccines is “not working” and encouraged public health officials to “hit the reset” and take up a new approach to inoculate Americans faster.
“We really need to get this vaccine out more quickly because this is really our only tool, our only backstop against the spread of these new variants. If we can get a lot of people vaccinated quickly, we might be able to get enough protective immunity into the population that this stops spreading at the rate that it is,” Gottlieb said in an interview with “Face the Nation. “So, we need to acknowledge that it’s not working. We need to hit the reset and adopt a new strategy in trying to get out to patients.”
Rollout of the two coronavirus vaccines, from Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, and Moderna, has hit snags, as already-stretched hospitals and health departments faced staff shortages and logistical issues. With the vaccine being offered to older Americans and health care workers, some hospital systems have begun offering incentives to workers to get their shots.
