Houston’s top doctor wants to see more COVID-19 vaccine hubs opening soon

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Local health leaders are hoping for change during the COVID-19 pandemic as President Joe Biden’s administration takes over the White House.

Global health and vaccinology expert Dr. Peter Hotez says a federal plan could be key in seeing an end to the pandemic.

“Under the previous administration, it was all focused on leaving it to the states to make the decisions with the federal government providing back up support,” said Hotez. “The problem was the states never had the sophistication, in terms of the epidemiologic models or the infrastructure, to know how to do this.”

Hours after President Biden was inaugurated, he signed an executive order which included investing $25 billion in vaccine manufacturing and distribution.

Hotez said with a federal plan and intervention, he hopes to see more large vaccination hubs opening and more vaccines offered to states.

“We have to vaccinate two to three million Americans a day,” said Hotez.

Hotez hopes the vaccine he and his team at Baylor are currently still testing will also be approved for use in the United States soon.

“We’re talking to people in the Biden administration about finding a path to getting our vaccine into the U.S. because we can scale to a billion doses,” said Hotez.