Biden criticizes Trump for the delay in vaccination: he promised 20 million at the end of the year and there are 10 times less

The government headed by Donald Trump promised to vaccinate 20 million people before the end of the year, but this goal will be far from being reached.

As of Dec. 28, only

2,127,143

doses of COVID-19 vaccines

have been administered

, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

[Follow our coverage on the coronavirus pandemic]

After meeting with his response team to COVID-19, President-elect Joe Biden will sue the Trump Administration for

“falling short”

in the face of the vaccination rate it had promised, according to an official from the transition team to our chain sister NBC News.

"As [Biden] has done since the beginning of this crisis, he will be honest and direct with the American people about what is to come, and he will address the current Administration that is falling short on the pace of vaccines," he said. .

The vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, also received the first dose of her vaccine this morning.

Biden was inoculated on Dec. 21, at a televised event to reinforce the message about the efficacy and safety of immunization.

The nation's top epidemiologist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, had recommended that Biden and Harris get vaccinated as soon as possible for national security reasons.

Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris receives the Moderna vaccine.

Applying 20 million vaccines in a matter of a month is not an easy task.

States need trained personnel, as well as syringes, needles, and proper storage to keep vaccines at the proper temperature.

To this is added the difficulties of companies to

produce the sufficient doses

requested by governments around the world.

Since September, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer has asked the Trump Administration

for help in obtaining raw materials

for the production of vaccines, but has not received a response, according to The New York Times.

It wasn't until last week that the United States agreed to purchase an additional 100 million doses of the vaccine.

As part of the negotiation with Pfizer, the Trump Administration pledged to invoke the Defense Production Act to help the company "get better access to around nine specialized products it needs to make the vaccine," according to the newspaper.

[Mexico is rushing to get enough coronavirus vaccines]

Biden promises to invoke the same law to boost vaccine production, said Dr. Celine Gounder, a member of Biden's Covid-19 advisory board, during an interview on CNBC.

Such legislation allows a president to compel private companies to manufacture products for national defense during emergency situations.

"The idea is to make sure that personal protective equipment, diagnostic tests and raw materials for vaccines are produced in adequate quantity," Gounder explained.

In March, Trump invoked the law for the automaker General Motors (GM) to make respirators that serve intubated patients.

US to buy 100 million more doses of Pfizer vaccine

Dec. 23, 202000: 34

At a press conference on December 23, Moncef Slaoui, Operation Warp Speed's chief adviser, agreed that the goal of 20 million vaccinated people by the end of 2020 "will probably not be reached."

Authorities told CNBC that the delay was due to distribution problems: some doses were

sent to the wrong places,

or were distributed on the wrong days.

"We tried to deliver a handful of packages that were not destined for the right place, but we captured them before they left them and redirected them to the right place," said General Gustave Perna, in charge of the logistics of Operation Warp Speed, in a conference. press.

"And we had a couple of shipments that did not go out on the correct day," he added.

Distribution was also affected by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has to perform

quality control on each shipment

of vaccines, according to CNN.

["Vaccines for all": Pope Francis asks for solidarity with the most vulnerable people]

Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services told CNN that the CDC has a

delay in reporting

people vaccinated, and Operation Warp Speed ​​only appears to be taking longer.

For example, the count does not include vaccinations performed in nursing homes, and only considers some of the doses of Moderna vaccine that have been administered so far.

On the other hand, some cities like Dayton, Ohio,

just started

immunization even though the vaccines had already been shipped to the state days before.

"We are not a big city that gets these assets quickly. We have talked about this, how testing was very slow in communities like Dayton and across the country, and I am concerned that vaccine distribution is also slow," said Mayor Nan Whaley to CNN.

Eulalio Gonzalez, 82, reacts after receiving the Moderna vaccine in Miami, Florida.

States have left the administration of the vaccine

to the responsibility of hospitals or care centers

, which leaves it out of the government's hands when - and how quickly - each person is injected.

"It's going to go a little bit slower. Again, better planning would have allowed us to move faster, but here we are and we must distribute these vaccines as quickly as possible, to the right people," the rector of the School of Science told CNN. Boston University Public Health, Ashish Jha.

With information from CDC, CNBC, The New York Times, CNBC, CNN.