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WASHINGTON – State officials said they were alerted on Wednesday evening that their second shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine next week had been cut back, causing widespread confusion and prompting a CEO to issue a statement saying it contained millions doses more than those distributed.
The changes raised concerns in the country’s health services about whether Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine accelerator, was able to deliver doses quickly enough to meet the goal of delivering the vaccine. first injections to 20 million people by the end of the year. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans, said revised estimates for next week were the result of states asking for an accelerated deadline for the lockdown of future shipments – from Friday to Tuesday – leaving less time for federal authorities to inspect and dispose of available supply.
But Pfizer released a statement on Thursday that appeared to contradict that explanation, saying the company had no production issues and had more doses available than those distributed.
“We have millions of additional doses in our warehouse, but at this time we have not received any shipping instructions for additional doses,” the statement said.
A total of 2.9 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were cleared for shipment this week, and 5.9 million doses of Moderna’s regimen are set to be released next week if the vaccine is cleared as planned. This will be in addition to the additional supply from Pfizer, which Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said would represent 2 million doses on Wednesday next week.
That’s a big drop from what states expected, according to health officials in several states. At least three states received a notice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday informing them of the shortfall, forcing last-minute changes to vaccine distribution plans for next week. Some places intended to use Pfizer’s second shipment to begin vaccinating residents of long-term care facilities, officials said, creating dilemmas over whether to continue these plans or to complete immunization of long-term care facilities. frontline healthcare providers of scaling up. pandemic.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said planned shipments to the state in the next two weeks had been cut by about half. The uncertainty was even more pronounced in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said Pfizer’s new shipments were “on hold,” as officials in his administration reported that their expected allocation disappeared entirely to Tiberius, on Trump administration online tracking system. using to coordinate with states. Fred Piccolo, a spokesperson for DeSantis, said the numbers came back online on Thursday but were significantly reduced.
“It’s 40% less than we originally thought,” Washington State Secretary of Health John Wiesman said in an interview Thursday. “We thought we were getting 74,100 and now we are planning 44,850 doses.”
Pfizer’s statement seemed to shift the blame back to the federal government.
“We have continuously shared with Operation Warp Speed and the US Department of Health and Human Services in weekly meetings all aspects of our production and distribution capabilities,” he continued. “They visited our facilities, walked the production lines and were briefed on our production planning as information became available.”
Michael Pratt, a spokesperson for HHS, denied any changes to the “blocked numbers with states” and said the government was still on track to allocate enough vaccines to around 20 million people to receive their first doses of ‘by the end of the year.
“Each week, OWS will notify states of the number of doses available to order for the coming week,” he said.
Warp Speed’s initial plan called for the federal government to notify states on Friday of the number of doses available to order, with shipping scheduled for Sunday. The senior administration official said states have asked for more notice in order to have more time to plan. “We are sending doses that have been produced, verified and released,” the official said.
Wiesman, of Washington state, said he could appreciate the decision to provide only the number of doses allowed, as opposed to an estimate of what might be available by the end of the week. But he said states cannot plan without a longer-term idea of what they will receive, which has been impossible due to changing estimates from drug companies and Operation Warp Speed.
“We have to have a sense of what the regular production will be, the manufacturer’s throughput so that we can look more than a week ahead,” he said.
FedEx and UPS are distributing the Pfizer vaccine, while Moderna’s product will be moved by McKesson, a major medical distributor. Both vaccines are two-dose regimens, and the Trump administration has chosen to withhold shipments of the second dose in an effort, he says, to ensure everyone gets a booster.
Some state officials said the delayed shipment of the second dose made their planning difficult, while a person familiar with Pfizer’s supply, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details, said that there were many more doses available that did not get shipped than just lots. be held back for recall shots.
Another person involved in the planning, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the situation, said Pfizer executives were baffled that the administration was not distributing immediately all of his vaccine and left much of it on the shelves.
On a positive note for hospitals receiving initial shipments of the Pfizer vaccine this week, some healthcare providers found they could get up to seven doses from vials that they had been told contained five lots of the precious vaccine.
The Food and Drug Administration has advised hospitals to use the extra supply, while Pfizer said the amount of vaccine left in the vial after using five doses may vary, asking healthcare providers to consult. their own immunization policies.
A complicating factor was that the companion kits shipped to vaccination sites by the federal government did not contain many spare syringes needed to administer the excess doses. The administration official said additional equipment will be included in future kits to accommodate additional doses that can be drawn from Pfizer vaccine vials.
Josh Dawsey and Fenit Nirappil of the Washington Post contributed to this report.
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