New York's governor said hospitals will face fines for slow vaccine roll-outs, while Florida vowed to move doses away from hospitals that don't dispense doses quickly enough.

U.S. Senator Mitt Romney is urging the Trump administration to immediately enlist veterinarians, combat medics and others in an all-out national vaccination campaign.

The leading U.S. infectious disease specialist made the comments as California became the second state to confirm a case of a new variant of the coronavirus from the U.K.

More than 500 doses of Moderna's coronavirus vaccine had to be thrown out because of the incident, which the company was led to believe was due to human error.

"Today we discovered Colorado’s first case of the COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7, the same variant discovered in the UK," Polis said on Twitter. 

Close to 18,000 people were hospitalized in California on Tuesday, and models project the number could top 100,000 in a month.

Only a third of the first shipment of Pfizer vaccine doses have been given across the U.S., putting the government's target for 20 million vaccinations this month in doubt.

Preliminary numbers suggest that the United States is on track to see more than 3.2 million deaths this year, or at least 400,000 more than in 2019.

The decision came a day after a panel of independent experts recommended approving the vaccine, which joins the Pfizer-BioNTech shot that was approved for use last week.

The sheepish approach has been surprising to experts while aides say it's a missed opportunity to claim victory in the speedy development of a vaccine.