Pfizer has ‘millions’ of unused vaccine doses waiting for the Trump admin to tell them where to ship

There are millions of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doses sitting in warehouses because the Trump administration has not yet told the pharmaceutical company where to ship the medicine, the company said Thursday.

“Pfizer is not having any production issues with our COVID-19 vaccine, and no shipments containing the vaccine are on hold or delayed. This week, we successfully shipped all 2.9 million doses that we were asked to ship by the U.S. Government to the locations specified by them. We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses," the company said in a statement.

"We have continuously shared with Operation Warp Speed (OWS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through weekly meetings every aspect of our production and distribution capabilities. They have visited our facilities, walked the production lines and been updated on our production planning as information has become available," Pfizer wrote. "We remain confident in our ability to deliver up to 50 million doses globally this year and up to 1.3 billion next year, and we look forward to continuing to work with the US Government to deliver our vaccine to the American people.”

Pfizer released the statement after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told CNBC that the pharmaceutical company was “going to need help from us on their manufacturing.”

“We don’t have complete visibility into their manufacturing because they have kept that a bit more arm’s length,” the Trump official claimed.

The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Pfizer had told the Trump administration it could not provide substantial additional vaccine doses until the summer.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker was baffled to hear that Pfizer had vaccines sitting on the shelves.

“I don’t know what to say about that,” the governor told WEBZ. “I have not had any direct conversations with the people who control those doses. Our (Illinois Department of Public Health) talks to the federal government every day and we’ve not been informed why the federal government is not drawing down those vaccines.”