US Senator Mitt Romney on Friday urged the US government to immediately enlist veterinarians, combat medics and others in an all-out national campaign to administer coronavirus vaccinations and slow a surging rise in COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths.
The Utah Republican, who ran unsuccessfully for president as his party's nominee in 2012, called for greater action as the Trump administration fell far short of its goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans with a first of two required doses by the end of 2020.
As of Friday, the first day of the new year, an estimated 2.8 million vaccine doses have actually been given, mostly to front-line healthcare workers as well as staff and residents of nursing facilities.
"That comprehensive vaccination plans have not been developed at the federal level and sent to the states as models is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable," Romney said in a statement.
The United States has lost more than 345,000 lives from COVID-19 to date, equal to one in every 950 Americans, and ranks 16th in national per capita coronavirus deaths in the world.
Meanwhile, the tally of known US infections reached another sober milestone on Friday, surpassing 20 million confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic, and the number of hospitalised COVID-19 patients exceeded 125,000, setting a daily record once more.
California, the most populous state with 40 million residents, has become a leading US flashpoint of the pandemic despite some of the nation's toughest restrictions on social gatherings and business activities.
HIDDEN DISASTER IN CALIFORNIA
The soaring COVID-19 caseload has pushed hospitals in and around Los Angeles in particular to their limits, filling emergency rooms, intensive care units, ambulance bays and morgues beyond capacity, and creating staff shortages.
Briefing reporters on Thursday, Cathy Chidester, director of the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency, called the situation a "hidden disaster," not plainly visible to the public.
Medical experts attribute the worsening pandemic in recent weeks to the arrival of colder weather and the failure of many Americans to abide by public health warnings and requirements to stay home and avoid unnecessary travel over the year-end holiday season.
The recent emergence of a more transmissible variant of the coronavirus in the United States could make a swift rollout of immunisations all the more critical.
Romney called for deploying veterinarians, emergency medical workers and medical students to help deliver vaccinations and set up inoculation clinics at sites such as school buildings that are largely empty because of the pandemic.
He also recommended establishing a clear order for Americans nationwide to receive their shots according to priority groups and birthdays, while welcoming other ideas from medical professionals. Prioritising vaccine recipients is currently being handled state by state.
With the inauguration of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden set for Jan 20, Romney has emerged as one of the few leading members of his party to openly criticise fellow Republican President Donald Trump.
Trump has repeatedly emphasised that he, not Biden, deserves credit for the speedy development of the vaccine, even as he has left immunisation efforts largely to state and local officials to administer with the help of private pharmacies.
States and localities, already hammered by the months-long fight against the outbreak and its economic fallout, only recently received federal money for vaccinations under the latest relief passage signed into law on Sunday.