Local Funding Crisis Threatens U.S. Vaccine Rollout

NEW YORK: Seattle public health officials have so little COVID-19 funding on hand they worry they will have to shut down some virus testing sites as they mount a campaign to dose their 2.3 million residents with Pfizer Inc’s and Moderna Inc’s vaccines.

King County, which represents greater Seattle, has $14 million of COVID-19 funding for 2021, roughly enough to fund its operations for a single month, and a fraction of the $87 million emergency COVID-19 aid it received in 2020, said Ingrid Ulrey, the public health policy director for King County.

“We’ve been on pins and needles the whole last three or four months, watching what’s happening at the federal level, waiting, watching,” she said. When newly approved federal funds finally trickle down to her level, she expects them to be less than this year, insufficient and too late.

“It’s shockingly low,” she added. “We have a huge new, unprecedented, daunting task of vaccine delivery.” King County is at risk of…