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Alaska’s January shipments of COVID-19 vaccine will include nearly 53,000 new doses from pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna, state health officials said Wednesday.
This is about 7,000 less than the amount received in December, but close to what was expected. Health officials haven’t said exactly when the doses will arrive, but it will likely be early in the new year.
These vaccine doses are in addition to shipments of the required second doses of each vaccine, which will also be shipped next month.
The state is finalizing the recommendations of its advisory committee that will determine Alaskans to be included in the next cycle – phase 1B – of the COVID-19 vaccination, and plans to share those decisions with the press and the public on Thursday, said Tessa Walker Linderman, who heads the state’s vaccine task force.
“We’re just taking an extra day to finalize (these recommendations) and make sure it’s good to go,” she said. “We will be working throughout the weekend to plan what the Phase 1B deployment will look like.”
Alaska, unlike other states, receives its vaccine in monthly rather than weekly shipments, making it easier for the state to arrange transportation to remote areas of the state.
The January allocation will include 27,300 doses of Pfizer and 25,600 of Moderna, and will total 52,900 doses – slightly less than the roughly 60,000 doses the state received in December.
The reason the amount is lower this month has to do with the amount of vaccine available from manufacturers, officials said.
The state’s allotment includes 16,200 doses of vaccine allocated by the Indian health service, but does not include the additional doses that will likely also come for veterans and the Department of Defense.
Despite the announcement of more vaccines to Alaska, access statewide remains extremely limited, with only frontline health workers based in hospitals, residents and facility staff. long-term care workers, emergency personnel, community health aides and people with immunizations currently eligible to receive it.
Many interested and eligible people from this initial group, but not all, have already been vaccinated, state officials said.
Starting January 4, another group of people in the first phase of the state will begin receiving vaccines. This group includes people who work in health care settings who are most at risk of contracting COVID-19, who are considered essential to the health care system, and who perform regular work that cannot be postponed. or done remotely.
Appointments for this group were posted on the state’s vaccine website (covidvax.alaska.gov) on Wednesday. A link on this site will show available clinics, providers and dates depending on location.
This state site is also where people can review their vaccine eligibility.
In addition, beneficiaries of Indian health services should contact their providers to see if they are eligible for the vaccine now, as the tribes have the power to distribute their IHS allowance as they see fit and in some cases cross levels faster. .
Thursday’s announcement will relate to eligibility for Phase 1B, which will likely begin in late January or early February, Walker Linderman said.
A federal advisory committee had said earlier this month that the next phases should include some essential frontline workers and people 75 and older, followed by people 65 and older, as well as young people with health problems. high risk health resulting in increased risk of severe COVID-19 infection.
But it’s up to individual states to tailor these recommendations by deciding which workers to classify as “essential” and how to break the groups down into additional levels.
In a public hearing Monday, nearly 50 Alaskans from a wide range of industries and backgrounds – including teachers, seniors, and seafood industry workers – spoke pleaded for inclusion in the next phase.
The Alaska Vaccine Advisory Committee also received nearly 400 written comments from members of the public.
The vaccine’s deployment in Alaska ran into a problem earlier this month when a healthcare worker in Juneau and another in Fairbanks both experienced severe allergic reactions to the vaccine.
Two of the six anaphylactic reactions reported by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have so far occurred in Alaska, although it is possible that there are more in other states that do not. have not yet been reported, said Dr Liz Ohlsen, a doctor in the state Department of Health.
There is no update on an ongoing federal investigation into why the reactions occurred, Ohlsen said.
“We should know a lot more over the next few weeks as the CDC collects and analyzes the data,” she said Wednesday. “Currently, we don’t think the vaccines in Alaska are any different in any way, so it’s possible that we just had two of the first to be recognized and reported.”
Ohlsen added that despite the reactions, the vaccination rate was generally high among Alaskan healthcare workers and others who are currently eligible.
And while only about a quarter of the state’s initial vaccine shipment has so far been put into the arms of Alaskans, Ohlsen said the distribution is likely to ramp up in the coming weeks.
“Our team in Alaska is working hard to get the vaccine to the people of Alaska as quickly as possible,” she said.
Alaska has the third highest per capita vaccination rate in the country, according to a national tracker Wednesday.
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