First shipments of Covid-19 vaccine will fall short

With the emergency approval of Pfizer’s vaccine, and possibly Moderna’s, expected later this month, the states will learn that it is not enough to fully vaccinate those who have the first and highest priority.

Earlier this week, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices advised that the very first group of Americans to be vaccinated should be at the forefront of healthcare and residents of long-term care facilities such as nursing homes. Together they represent about 24 million people.

Federal officials estimate that about 40 million vaccines will be available by the end of this month if Moderna and Pfizer get FDA approval – enough to vaccinate 20 million people alone, as two doses per person are needed.

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But even this number is not enough. Pfizer expects to have only 6.4 million doses of vaccine available by mid-December.

CNN’s analysis of the government’s violations of what it plans to receive shows that not everyone will have enough to fully vaccinate health care and long-term care workers. CNN was able to confirm the first expected lot sizes for at least 45 states.

States must now decide how to distribute the vaccine among their priority groups and how the small first part will affect when groups that exceed the vaccination limit can be vaccinated. Some states already have to figure it out – decide which health workers have a higher priority than others.

California must first vaccinate 2.4 million health care workers, and Governor Gavin Newsome said earlier this week that the state will initially receive only 327,000 doses of Pfizer’s vaccine.

Since this only applies to certain health workers who need to be vaccinated, Newsom said Thursday that the government will further restrict the list of priority groups of health workers to decide who will be vaccinated first.

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It’s one thing to listen to the national news, well, we all agree that our health workers and our skilled care and old people’s homes should be a priority, but there are millions and millions of people. If you only have a few hundred thousand doses of vaccine – two doses are needed – you can halve this number compared to the total number of people actually fully vaccinated. We need to look at some priorities for those doses, and that’s what we’ve done, Newsom said Thursday.

In California, the Covid 19 vaccine is now delivered first to emergency services, nursing homes, dialysis centers and rescue services, and then to groups such as home care workers.

Alabama is receiving far less vaccine from Pfizer than was promised in the first shipment. Instead of Pfizer’s first 112,000 doses, the state will receive 40,950, according to Karen Landers of the Alabama Department of Public Health. The state has identified 300,000 health workers and 22,000 inhabitants of long-term care institutions as one of the highest priority groups for vaccination.

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The Alabama Department of Health will monitor the distribution of Covid-19 vaccine in Phase 1a and, if necessary, will ask suppliers to divide people into subcategories in Phase 1a based on delivery, CNN said. Medical staff working in emergencies, the Kovid 19 units, for example, have major health problems or other factors that may be caused by primary immunisation.

Montana receives only about 9,750 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the first batch, although there are more than 40,000 health workers in the country who need to be vaccinated before they can reach the rest of the state’s population.

We’re likely to receive several thousand more in the coming weeks, Governor Steve Bullock said at a press conference earlier this week.

The Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, said his state will be inaugurated on December 15. December 170,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine. The state’s priority groups include 85,000 nursing home residents and 130,000 nursing home workers.

For some states, the difference between the number of vaccines they are likely to receive and the number of people designated as the state’s first priority is not so great.

In Texas, the government plans to introduce new legislation with 224,250 doses of Pfizer vaccine in the week of December 14, but will receive 1.4 million doses by the end of December when Pfizer and Moderna combine their deliveries. The state estimates that 1.6 million health workers will need to be vaccinated to complete the first phase of the process.

In Friday’s announcement, the Governor of West Virginia Jim Justice detailed what the state would receive by sharing not only the first party but also the limit orders for each week. The judge said West Virginia should be in session on the 15th. December received 60,000 doses of vaccine from Pfizer and a week later 26,000 doses of Moderna. The government can order up to 16,000 new boxes a week from Pfizer and about 5,000 boxes a week from Modern.

The state reported that its first priority group includes approximately 100,000 health professionals, carers and long-term residents, persons essential to public infrastructure and emergency response, health professionals and primary care providers.