U.S. Congresswoman Cindy Axne

According to the most recent state profile report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 3.7 percent of Iowans have received both doses of their COVID-19 vaccine, while 10.6 percent have received just the first dose.

 Iowa’s Third Congressional District representative Cindy Axne says she’s hopeful that President Joe Biden’s announcement of deals to purchase 200 million more vaccines by the end of July will be the first step to boosting those numbers. 

“There’s a big supply gap. We could be administering a lot more. So what we have is a system that isn’t delivering what it could be because we don’t have the supply chain isn’t intact. So, the next thing they’re doing is getting that supply chain intact. So, it’s a purchase of whatever we can get our hands on and getting those out the door within the current channels that we have and a restructuring of a better supply chain to address that gap between what states get and how much they can administer. So, let’s start getting more to the states that are doing a good job of administering and having the highest levels of people who should be getting the vaccine at this point.”

Axne said at one point, Iowa was ranked 15th in administering the vaccine and 46th in allocation of doses. She added that she’s working with Governor Kim Reynolds on keeping Iowa’s administration rate high.