The US will end the year having vaccinated far fewer people against coronavirus than hoped, senior Trump administration officials admitted, with states having used only about a fifth of the doses they were given in the past three weeks.
唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)政府高官承认,今年年底前美国新型冠状病毒肺炎(COVID-19,即2019冠状病毒病)疫苗的接种人数将远低于预期。过去三周,美国各州分到的疫苗制剂仅用掉约五分之一。
Officials at US public health agencies said a combination of the holiday season, bad weather and complex vaccine procedures have conspired to result in fewer healthcare workers and care homes residents being vaccinated this year than planned.
美国公共卫生机构官员表示,在假日季、恶劣天气和复杂接种程序的共同影响下,今年完成新冠疫苗接种的医护工作者和养老院人群要比计划中少。
Officials had aimed to distribute enough doses to vaccinate 20m people by the end of the year, but recently admitted they were not likely to hit that target until early January after underestimating how long it would take to perform quality control checks on manufactured doses.
官员们原计划在今年年底前分发足够2000万人接种的疫苗,但最近承认,由于低估了对生产出的疫苗进行质量控制检查所需的时间,他们不太可能在明年1月初之前实现这一目标。
Figures released by the federal government, however, show a bigger hurdle is getting the vaccines to people once they have been manufactured and sent out. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday just under 2.6m people in the country had been vaccinated, even though 12.4m doses had been distributed.
然而,美国联邦政府公布的数据显示,更大的难关是在疫苗生产完毕并分发出去后,让人们接种上疫苗。美国疾病控制和预防中心(CDC)周三表示,尽管已经分发了1240万剂疫苗,但全国只有不到260万人接种了疫苗。