With the authorization of emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine expected earlier this month, and perhaps even for the Moderna vaccine, states are learning that it is not enough to give a full vaccine to those designated as their first and top priority.
Federal officials estimate that about 40 million vaccines will be available by the end of the month if both Moderna and Pfizer are available in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorization will be obtained – just enough to vaccinate 20 million people, as each person needs two doses.
But that number will also go down. Pfizer expects to have only 6.4 million doses of vaccine ready by mid-December.
A CNN analysis of the state’s breakdown of what they plan to achieve shows that health care workers and long-term care residents will be all but less than what they need to be fully vaccinated. CNN was able to confirm the expected size of the first shipment of the vaccine to at least 45 states.
States must now determine how they will be vaccinated in their top priority groups and how small group installments affect the schedule of how they can vaccinate groups below the line. Some states are already forced to have a radius – out of which healthcare workers choose which ones take precedence over others.
California must first vaccinate 2.4 million healthcare workers, and Governor Gavin News said earlier this week that only 327,000 doses are being received from Pfizer to begin with by the state.
As it covers only a fraction of the healthcare workers required for vaccination, Newsome said Thursday that the state will also print a list of top priority groups of healthcare workers to determine who is vaccinated first.
“It’s one thing when you hear the national news, well, we all widely agree that our healthcare workers and skilled nursing should prioritize residential care and support living facilities, but that’s millions and millions of people. When you have only a few People only have a hundred thousand doses of vaccine – doses, you need two doses – you can cut in half in terms of the total number of people who will actually get the full vaccine. Said.
The Covid-19 vaccine in California will now go to intensive care facilities, nursing homes, dialysis centers and first responders before moving to groups such as home health care workers.
Alabama is getting much less than the Pfizer vaccine they were first promised from the initial shipment. Instead of 112,000 doses of their first shipment by Pfizer, the state will receive 40,950 doses, according to public health official Karen Landers’ Alabama division. The state employs 300,000 health care workers and 22,000 long-term care facility residents, as vaccination is among the highest priority groups.
“The Alabama Department of Public Health will comply with the Phase 1A allocation of its Covid-19 vaccine and, as needed, ask providers to sub-classify individuals within Phase 1A based on supply,” Landers told CNN. “For example, healthcare workers who work in the emergency room, have covid-19 units, have underlying health problems or other factors, can get an early vaccination.”
While more than 50,000 healthcare workers are vaccinated before moving on to the rest of the state’s population, Montana is receiving only “of of 0” doses from the first shipment.
“We’re likely to get a few thousand doses next week,” Governor Steve Bullock told a news conference earlier this week.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said his state would receive 170,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine on Dec. 15. The state’s highest priority groups include 85,000 nursing-home residents and 130,000 nursing home facility workers.
For some states, the difference between the amount they expect to be vaccinated and the number of people with the state’s highest priority is not far off.
In Texas, the state expects 224,250 doses of the Pfizer vaccine in the week of December 14, but when shipments from Pfizer and Modern are combined by the end of December, it will end with 1.4 million doses. The state estimates that it needs to vaccinate 1.6 million health care workers to complete the first phase of the process.
In his announcement Friday, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice detailed not only the initial shipment, but what the state would achieve by distributing the rendering cap for each week. The judge said West Virginia is expected to receive 60,000 doses of the vaccine from Pfizer on Dec. 15 and 26,000 doses from Modern in the following week. The state can order about 16,000 new doses a week from Pfizer and about 5,000 from Door Modern.
The state has said its first priority group is about 100,000 healthcare workers, long-term care facility staff and residents, community infrastructure and critical individuals for emergency response, public health officials and first responders.
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