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California Says Vaccine Supply Looks Flat Next Three Weeks

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Health care personnel dressed in protective gear help inoculate people with the COVID-19 vaccine on Jan. 22, 2021 at the Fairplex in Pomona, California, one of five mass vaccination sites that opened across Los Angeles County this week. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

While President Biden said last week that the U.S. is on track to have enough vaccine for all adults by the end of May, California officials are tempering expectations that an abundant supply will soon arrive in the state.

For now, the state has only a three-week projection from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how much vaccine it can expect.

"And I hate to tell you this, but it is entirely flat. There is not a single dose increase, not one," said Marta Green, with the California Government Operations Agency. "What I'm hoping is that when those allocations actually come, that what's allocated is over that projection, that it's an underpromising and overdelivering."

Green warns the wait might be longer for people who haven’t had their first shot because the state still has to provide a lot of second doses from what’s available.

Still, in recent days, the state administered more than 200,000 vaccines per day on average, putting the total since the beginning of the vaccination program at more than 10 million doses, with 3 million people now inoculated with the required two shots.

Farida Jhabvala Romero

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