How many doses is your county receiving? – WTOP

Maryland’s local health departments are taking a longer-term look at how many doses of COVID-19 vaccine they will receive over the next few weeks – a change that local health officials have long been calling for and which they say will facilitate task. to plan and set up vaccination clinics.

The four-week vaccine dose projections were published in a February 12 bulletin sent to COVID-19 vaccine suppliers in the Maryland Department of Health.

But even though the projections offer greater visibility into vaccine doses, the projections show that the doses that county health departments will receive over the next month will not increase significantly anytime soon – even though the counties in the DC region continue to face an overwhelming demand for the shots.

The Montgomery County Health Department in Maryland, the state’s most populous county, is projected to receive 4,500 doses of the vaccine each week through March 8.

That’s the same number of doses the county health department received last week. However, this is less than the 5,500 received the previous week and only about half the number the county received a month ago.

The number of first weekly doses provided to the county health department has declined as the state shifted more doses to hospitals and retail pharmacies, such as Giant and Safeway, which is part of the goal of the State to create an extensive infrastructure of “the above vaccine providers” scattered across the state. The bulletin’s projections do not include the number of doses sent to other providers in each county, but only health service allocations.

Meanwhile, the Prince George County Health Department, the second most populous county in the state, is expected to receive 4,200 doses each week through March 8, according to the bulletin.

The Baltimore County Department of Health is expected to receive the highest weekly allowance: 4,900 doses.

The Anne Arundel County Health Department will receive 3,400 weekly doses for the next four weeks; Howard County will receive 1,700 weekly doses; and Charles County will receive 1,100 doses.

(See the full count below)

The projections are based, in part, on incoming dose data provided by the federal government.

“We reserve the right to make changes based on what the federal government provides to Maryland,” said Bryan Mroz, Acting Assistant Secretary, Maryland Department of Health, in the newsletter.

A total of 31,500 vaccine doses in total are expected to be sent to local health departments each week, according to projections. This represents about one-third of the total COVID-19 vaccine doses Maryland receives from the federal government in any given week. The remaining doses are sent to retail pharmacies and hospitals, but the projections do not include these doses.

In a letter last week to leaders of the Maryland County Association, Maryland Acting Secretary of Health Dennis Schrader said a total of 51 retail pharmacies across Maryland have partnered up. government to provide vaccines and that each site received 200 doses per week. , which represents 10,000 additional doses.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced the decision to give local health departments higher notice of doses at a press conference earlier in the week.

“So far state health officials have had to wait until Thursday, Friday – sometimes even Saturday night – of each week to find out what we could allocate to anyone for the following week.” Hogan said at the Feb.11 press conference.

Last week, leaders of 22 state jurisdictions wrote to Hogan urging greater transparency on vaccine distribution and asking the state to share weekly vaccine dose projections with the public and publish earlier.

“Providers need more notice to plan logistics, and the public deserves to know how many doses each local provider has,” local officials wrote in the letter.

In response, Schrader, the acting health secretary, said the Hogan administration agreed “that it would be useful for planning purposes to know what was going on in the pipeline,” and said that the bottleneck lay with the federal government, which only gave most of itself a week’s notice.

The new four-week projections were made possible because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had agreed to give states a two-week “look into the future,” Schrader said.

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More coronavirus news

Looking for more information? DC, Maryland and Virginia each publish more data every day. Visit their official websites here: Virginia | Maryland | DC

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What’s the timeline?

The news of the number of doses sent to health services comes as local leaders seek to iron out a sometimes difficult vaccination process.

In Prince George County, executive Angela Alsobrooks has promised a series of fixes to speed up vaccinations in the county. While the county is home to the Six Flags Mass Vaccination Clinic, the county has struggled to vaccinate its own population.

As of Monday, about 47,000 residents had received their first vaccines – only about 5% of the county’s population.

In neighboring Montgomery County, which has seen an overwhelming demand for appointments, more than 106,000 residents have received their first injection – more than 10% of the population.

In the DC region, the focus generally remains on immunizing the oldest and most vulnerable residents.

As to when the vaccines will be more widely available to members of the general public, Montgomery County officials, for example, have been hesitant to provide a timeline given continued low supply.

Last week, Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich said given the county’s dose allocation, it could take 10 more weeks to continue vaccinating residents 75 and older.

But a local health department is providing a bit more clarity on a possible schedule.

In a Feb. 14 update on its website, the Anne Arundel County Health Department outlined a rough timeline for the next phase of vaccine deployment. According to the site, the Anne Arundel County Health Department plans to start vaccinations as part of phase 1c in the period from March to April. This includes people aged 65 to 74, immunocompromised patients in hospital treatment, grocery store workers and postal workers.

The county schedule calls for moving to Phase 2 of the vaccine rollout in April or May. This phase includes adults under 65 with high-risk conditions and other types of essential workers, such as construction workers, bank tellers and members of the media.

Phase 3, which includes anyone aged 16 and over, is expected to begin in May or June.

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Number of weekly doses to send to local health departments in Maryland during the week of March 8

Demographic data was researched by the WTOP using data from the US Census Bureau and are estimates from 2019

• Allegany County Department of Health – 500 doses (population: 70,416)
• Anne Arundel County Health Department – 3,400 doses (population: 579,234)
• Baltimore City Department of Health – 2,000 doses (population: 593,490)
• Baltimore County Department of Health – 4,900 doses (population: 827,370)
• Calvert County Department of Health – 500 doses (population: 92,525)
• Carolina County Department of Health – 300 doses (population: 33,406)
• Carroll County Department of Health – 1,000 doses (population: 168,447)
• Cecil County Department of Health – 900 doses (population: 102,855)
• Charles County Department of Health – 1,100 doses (population: 159,428)
• Dorchester County Department of Health – 300 doses (population: 32,138)
• Frederick County Department of Health – 1,300 doses (population: 251,422)
• Garrett County Department of Health – 300 doses (population: 29,235)
• Harford County Department of Health – 1,400 doses (population: 252,222)
• Howard County Department of Health – 1,700 doses (population: 318,855)
• Kent County Department of Health – 300 doses (population: 19,536)
• Montgomery County Department of Health – 4,500 doses (population: (1,043,530)
• Prince George County Department of Health – 4,200 doses (population: 908,670)
• Queen Anne County Department of Health – 300 doses (population: 49,632)
• Somerset County Department of Health – 300 doses (population: 25,616)
• St. Mary’s County Department of Health – 800 doses (population: 113,510)
• Talbot County Department of Health – 300 doses (population: 37,167)
• Washington County Department of Health – 500 doses (population: 150,109)
• Wicomico County Department of Health – 700 doses (population: 102,539)
• Worcester County Department of Health – 300 doses (population: 51,765)

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Total weekly vaccine doses sent to health services – 31,500