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 Across the country, state health departments are preparing local
hospitals for the first shipments of Pfizer Inc's COVID-19 vaccine
if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorizes it, possibly as
early as mid-December.
The first shipment is expected to cover inoculations of 3.2 million
people, nowhere near enough for the 21 million U.S. healthcare
workers. And government officials said initial shipments would also
go to five government agencies including the Departments of Defense,
State and the Veterans Health Administration.
The subsequent two weekly vaccine distributions could cover 7 to 10
million people a week, provided a second vaccine - from Moderna Inc
- is authorized early in the second half of December, and Pfizer
meets its distribution estimates, according to data provided by
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the companies.
Federal officials have not disclosed exactly how many doses will be
in later shipments.
“For the time being, and the foreseeable future, the demand for
vaccines is going to exceed the supply by a lot, even for the
highest priority groups that are identified,” said Josh Michaud,
Kaiser's associate director of global health policy.
States have the final word on how to distribute vaccines to their
citizens, but federal officials have said that of some 330 million
U.S. residents, healthcare workers and those in nursing homes should
be considered first for vaccines. Many states told Reuters that was
their plan.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not
respond to a request to comment. The Pentagon declined comment. HHS
cited public comments from a Tuesday press call, in which officials
said the first dose allocation will be the start of a steady stream
of vaccine deliveries.
SOME BETTER PROTECTED THAN OTHERS
With early supplies limited, the federal government is allocating
doses based on state populations, rather than the proportion of the
populations at high risk. That means some states' health workers
will be better protected than others.
Alabama for instance, will receive enough vaccine for around 17% of
its healthcare workers, while Illinois could cover only 13%,
according to data from state officials.
The approach would initially leave out around 190,000 healthcare
workers in Alabama and more than 570,000 in Illinois, according to
Kaiser Family Foundation data on healthcare workers by state. More
than 2 million healthcare workers in California will have to wait as
early vaccine supplies are doled out, based on figures provided to
Reuters by state officials.
This first stage of the rollout illustrates the complexity of the
government’s goal to vaccinate most Americans by mid-2021 to stall a
pandemic that has so far claimed more than 273,000 U.S. lives, with
hundreds of thousands more deaths projected in the next few months.
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U.S. officials maintain they will distribute 40 million doses by the end of the
year - enough to inoculate 20 million people - with millions of shots shipping
every week, assuming speedy approvals of both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
Pfizer, which developed its vaccine with German partner BioNTech SE, told
Reuters the United States will receive about half of the 50 million doses it
will produce in 2020. Moderna’s vaccine could add at least another 12.5 million
doses, federal officials have said.
The CDC expects about 5 million to 10 million doses to be shipped per week in
the first weeks of the U.S. vaccine distribution effort.
STATES PLAN FOR SHORTFALL
States meanwhile are preparing for the first distribution to fall short, as
hospitals across the country grapple with record numbers of COVID-19 patients
and staffing shortages.
"Clinical staff are becoming infected, nurses and doctors. It's creating a
workforce crunch and the beds are filling up," said Alan Morgan, chief executive
of the National Rural Health Association, an advocacy group for rural hospitals.
Arkansas’s state epidemiologist Jennifer Dillaha said vaccines are urgently
needed to keep up with the surge in patients. "We want to ensure our hospital
capacity as much as possible through vaccination for those healthcare workers
who are at highest risk for infection,” she said.
More than half a dozen states including Alabama, California, New Mexico, and
Wisconsin, told Reuters the first allocation estimates they have been given
would not be near enough to cover all their healthcare workers, let alone other
high-priority residents.
The size of initial allocation figures shared with Reuters ranges widely, from
around 330,000 in California - the most populous U.S. state - to less than 7,000
in North Dakota, which has 50,000 healthcare workers, according to Kaiser data
and figures provided to Reuters by state officials.
That means both states can vaccinate less than 20% of their healthcare workforce
with the first shots. New York state will receive 170,000 shots initially,
enough for roughly 13% of its healthcare workers.
The U.S. government expects the number of available doses to increase in January
to about 60 million to 70 million.
It has made deals for 100 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine for $1.95 billion
and 100 million of Moderna’s for $1.5 billion, with options to buy more. It
expects vaccines to be free to most Americans.
(Reporting by Rebecca Spalding and Carl O'Donnell; Editing by Caroline Humer and
Bill Berkrot)
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